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NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE 
MEN OF THE GEORGIAN ERA 



NOBLE DAMES AND 
NOTABLE MEN OF 
THE GEORGIAN ERA 

BY 

JOHN FYVIE 

AUTHOR OF "SOME FAMOUS WOMEN OF WIT AND BEAUTY, 
"COMEDY QUEENS OF THE GEORGIAN ERA," ETC., ETC. 



NEW YORK 

JOHN LANE COMPANY 

MCMXI 



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PREFACE 

The reader will be in little danger of supposing me to 
imply that the Georgian era did not produce nobler dames 
and more notable men than any I have included in the 
present volume. Nevertheless, it may perhaps be advisable 
for me to point out that the subjects of the six character 
sketches here brought together have been selected because, 
in addition to the interest of their several life histories, they 
all exhibit some peculiarity, or quaintness, or eccentricity, of 
mind and behaviour, such as would have caused our forebears 
to dub them emphatically " characters." 

So far as was possible, I have let Horace Walpole tell the 
story of Lady Mary Coke, supplementing him, where neces- 
sary, from other sources, and especially from Lady Louisa 
Stuart's brief but brilliant sketch of the family of John, Duke 
of Argyll and Greenwich, which was prefixed to the portion 
of Lady Mary's "Journal" privately printed for Lord Home 
in 1889. It was not permissible for me to quote (as I should 
have been very glad to do pretty extensively) from Lady 
Louisa's delightful little memoir ; but I am especially fortu- 
nate in being able to enrich and enliven my narrative by the 
inclusion of eighteen scarcely known letters of Horace 
Walpole. When Cunningham issued his great edition of 
Walpole's " Letters," and for a good many years after- 
wards, it was thought that only one letter of his to Lady 
Mary Coke had survived ; but some eighteen or twenty 
years ago a packet was found amongst the papers of the late 
Mr. Drummond-Moray which contained no less than twenty- 
six hitherto unknown letters from Walpole to the lady, of 
various dates ranging from 1759 to 1772. These letters were 
included in the third volume of Lady Mary's "Journal, " 
which was privately printed in 1892. I have to express my 
most cordial thanks to Colonel Home Drummond-Moray for 



PREFACE 

permitting me to use these letters, and also to Lord Home for 
allowing me to copy them from his privately printed book. 
Whether or not it be true that people's characters may be 
always as well known by the letters addressed to them as by 
those of their own composition, it is certainly the fact that 
these letters to Lady Mary Coke contain not a few indications 
of the character of the recipient, as well as of that of the 
writer ; and they are likewise amongst the pleasantest and 
wittiest epistles that even that prince of letter-writers ever 
penned. 

The sketch of Lady Holland was written before the 
appearance of the selection from her " Journal " which was 
published under the editorship of Lord Ilchester in 1909. 
But I have not found it necessary to make any alteration, 
because, as Lord Ilchester says, the later career of Lady 
Holland does not come within the scope of his volumes, 
and it is that later career alone with which I have attempted 
to deal. If it should be objected that Lady Holland, who 
died as recently as 1845, does not properly come within the 
period indicated in my title, I would reply that she was born 
in the 10th of George the Third ; that she was, both literally 
and metaphorically, a child of the eighteenth century ; and, 
moreover, that the period which we refer "to somewhat 
vaguely as " the Georgian era, " or " the eighteenth cen- 
tury," did not, as Sir Walter Besant first pointed out, come 
to an end on December 31st, 1800, or even on the day 
of the death of George the Fourth, but lasted on, in all its 
essential characteristics, at least until about the time of the 
accession of Queen Victoria. 

J.F. 



vi 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 
PREFACE ......... V 

I. A GRANDE DAME — LADY MARY COKE, 1726 — l8ll . . 3 

II. A JOURNALISTIC PARSON — SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, 

BART., 1745— 1824 79 

III. A HUNTED HEIRESS — THE COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE, 

1749 — 180O IO7 

IV. A PROFESSIONAL BEGGAR — BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW, 

1693— (?) 1753 147 

V. A UNIQUE HOSTESS — ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND, 1770 

— I 8 45 173 

VI. A METAPHYSICAL HUMORIST — ABRAHAM TUCKER, 1705 

— 1774 203 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 



N.D. 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

Holkham Hall, in Norfolk, is one of the stateliest of 
the stately homes of England. It was built in the earlier 
half of the eighteenth century by Thomas Coke, Earl of 
Leicester, after a design by the classic Palladio. In order 
that it might stand as a monument of his name for ever, it 
was constructed of specially made bricks and mortar, care- 
fully fashioned after the pattern of the marvellously durable 
bricks and mortar of the ancient Romans. Its casements and 
window-sashes were of burnished gold. Its great marble and 
alabaster hall was adorned with priceless antique statuary, for 
which his agents ransacked Italy and Greece. Its spacious 
rooms were filled with costly furniture and curios, and their 
walls hung with beautiful tapestries and with pictures by 
Titian, and Van Dyk, and Paul Veronese, and Holbein, and 
other old masters. For the last five-and-twenty years of his 
life Lord Leicester devoted himself to the personal super- 
intendence of every detail of the building and adornment of 
this splendid palace, which he had planned to be the envied 
habitation, not of himself only, but of his children's children 
for generation after generation. But the fates conspired 
against the realisation of his dream. Of all his children only 
one survived infancy, and that one, Edward, Viscount Coke, 
lived such a life of drunken riot and debauchery that his 
excesses threatened to bring him to an early grave. After he 
came of age the one hope of his anxious parents was that a 
suitable marriage might regenerate their graceless son, or, at 
the least, provide an heir to the family title and estates ; and 
they consequently negotiated, in the fashion of those times, 

3 B2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

for an alliance with some family possessed either of blue 
blood or of money. Notwithstanding the enormous wealth 
to which he was heir, it was apparently the money that was 
looked out for first, for, as Horace Walpole remarks, it was 
only after " offering him to all the great lumps of gold in all 
the alleys of the City" that they settled upon one of the 
daughters of the Dowager Duchess of Argyll, a young 
damsel who undoubtedly had the bluest of blood in her 
veins, but whose portion was only a paltry £12,000. Before 
saying anything further about this lady herself, it will 
be worth while to make a few observations concerning her 
parentage. 

In 1712 John, Duke of Argyll, fresh from warlike exploits 
on the Continent, which had made him no mean rival of the 
great Duke of Marlborough, made his appearance at the 
Court of Queen Anne, was invested with the Order of the 
Garter, and became, of course, the popular hero of the day. 
He was then thirty-four years of age, and not only a soldier 
of great reputation, but as handsome, graceful, and engaging 
a personality as the Court had ever seen. It may not, there- 
fore, seem a very extraordinary thing that, when the ladies' 
toasts were called for one day at a dinner given by the Lord 
Chamberlain to the maids of honour, one of those maids, 
Jane Warburton, should ingenuously propose the name of the 
popular hero whose figure and achievements were probably 
dominant in the minds of all of them. But for two reasons 
this apparently simple and natural manifestation of the 
general feeling aroused a storm of satirical and hilarious 
comment. In the first place, it was most unusual for a young 
lady, when called upon for a toast, to propose any name but 
that of some discreet bishop, or statesman, or courtier who 
was old enough to be her father ; and, in the second place, 
the particular young lady who had committed this breach of 
maidenly etiquette was so devoid of personal charms and so 
rustic in her speech and manners that nobody had ever been 
able to make out how so unlikely a creature had obtained 

4 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

an appointment in the Court. She was the daughter of a 
Cheshire squire of good family, but her education and speech 
were those of a dairymaid, and had all along been made a 
standing jest by her companions in office. When she pro- 
posed her toast, therefore, there was a general shout of 
laughter, and she had to endure the raillery of the whole 
company on the modest humility of her choice, some sug- 
gesting that the Duke ought to be informed of the wonderful 
conquest he had made, and keeping up their battery with such 
effect that poor Jane could bear it no longer, and burst into 
a passion of tears. That night the Duke of Shrewsbury, 
happening to stand next to the Duke of Argyll at a ball, 
related this story as a good joke, when, to his and everybody 
else's extreme surprise, the gallant Argyll immediately asked 
to be introduced to the young lady, in order that by chatting 
with her for a few moments he might make some amends 
for the discomfort to which she had been subjected on his 
account. And, to the still further surprise of everybody, 
he not only devoted himself to Jane Warburton for the 
remainder of that evening, but afterwards visited her con- 
stantly, and made it perfectly plain that he was over head 
and ears in love with her. Unfortunately, the Duke had a 
wife already, having been married at the early age of twenty- 
one to Mary Brown, daughter of a rich citizen, and niece of 
Sir Charles Duncombe, Lord Mayor of London. He had 
very soon discovered that he cordially detested the lady, and 
they had been promptly separated. Since then his expe- 
rience of women had been limited to specimens of that class 
which follows a camp, and he had come to the conclusion 
that every woman had her price. When, therefore, he found 
that Jane Warburton was not to be tempted from the path 
of rectitude by presents or promises, however magnificent 
these might be, he was greatly astonished, and he came to 
the further conclusion that it had been his good fortune to 
become acquainted with a solitary exception to the foregoing 
principle, or, in other words, with the only virtuous woman 

5 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

in the world. For about four years he was a visitor to her 
room every morning ; and it is a remarkable circumstance 
that, compromising as the situation was, Jane Warburton's 
character was considered by the whole Court to remain alto- 
gether unimpeachable. 

When Queen Anne died in 1714, Jane would probably 
have been dismissed to her home with a small pension but 
for the fact that the Whig leaders, who then came into office, 
wished to make sure of the continued adhesion of the power- 
ful Duke of Argyll, and considered that one of the best ways 
of doing so was to keep his lady love at Court. They conse- 
quently made her one of the maids of honour to the new 
Princess of Wales. But about two years after the death of 
Queen Anne the Duke's wife died ; and the ladies of the 
Court immediately began to speculate how long it would be 
before he would find it necessary to drop the poor maid of 
honour and ally himself with some lady of suitable rank 
in order to provide an heir for his titles and estates. Once 
more they were very greatly surprised, for, after a very short 
period of perfunctory mourning, Jane Warburton was duly 
made Duchess of Argyll. Lady Louisa Stuart says that, 
although everybody else agreed in calling Jane extremely 
plain, the Duke believed her to be an incomparable beauty ; 
and it is certainly remarkable that, notwithstanding the very 
great disappointment it must have been to him to have no 
son and heir, but only daughters, whom he contemptuously 
regarded as " useless encumbrances," he remained a faithful 
and " doating " husband to the end of his life. 

Of course the Duke, Pope's 

" Argyll, the State's whole thunder, born to wield 
And shake alike the senate and the field," 

who was a distinguished statesman as well as a distinguished 
general, who was possessed of large information and gifted 
with great conversational powers, would have been glad to 
have about him in his own home many of the intellectual and 

6 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

eminent men with whom he was inevitably associated in public 
affairs. But poor Duchess Jane had a horror of " clever " 
people, and managed to keep all such out of her intimate 
circle. With all his affection for her, the Duke would never 
have dreamt of asking her opinion or advice on any matter 
which he considered to be of real importance ; but in all 
matters of social and family life he let her have her own 
way altogether. Unfortunately he considered the education 
of a parcel of useless girls a matter of no importance ; and 
consequently the tuition of his four daughters was left entirely 
to the discretion of Duchess Jane, who neither sent them 
to school nor provided proper tutors for them, being quite 
satisfied if they were taught the elements of reading, writing, 
and arithmetic by her steward, and needlework by her house- 
keeper. One stipulation, indeed, the Duke did make : he 
objected to their being taught French in addition to their 
mother-tongue, because, as he contemptuously observed, one 
language was quite enough for any woman to talk in ; and, as 
Duchess Jane knew no word of any language save her own, 
she probably considered this as only another instance of her 
lord's superior wisdom. They were none of them deficient 
in good looks; but they all of them inherited from their 
mother a harsh and discordant voice, so that they came to 
be called " the screaming sisterhood " and " the bawling 
Campbells," while their want of proper training caused them 
to become, as Lady Louisa Stuart declares, " the most noisy, 
hoydening girls in London." But the Duke not only left 
undone those things which he ought to have done ; he also 
did those things which he ought not to have done ; for the 
ungovernable violence of the temper of his youngest daughter, 
Mary, was largely due to his injudicious habit of alternately 
teasing and indulging her. After he had purposely irritated 
the little minx into a fury he would cry, " Look ! look at 
Mary ! " and laugh heartily to see her flying about, screaming 
and scratching like a wild cat, and then, when he had had 
enough of the scene, would coax her with sugar-plums to 

7 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

kiss and be friends again. Of course it was inevitable that 
such unwise treatment should produce after-effects of a very 
pronounced character. But, in addition to a peculiarly 
violent temper, Lady Mary exhibited as she grew up very 
exalted notions of her own importance, together with a 
morbid, dominant idea that nothing which happened to 
her was quite the same as what occurred to mere ordinary 
commonplace people. Not merely was she so hypersensi- 
tive that if she simply pricked her finger the pain was almost 
too exquisite for words, but if she caught cold, or had a 
sore throat, it was impossible that this could be a mere 
common ailment, it must be a disease of extraordinary 
malignity ; or, if she happened to be caught in a shower, 
it was no ordinary shower, but such a rain as had never 
fallen from heaven since the Deluge. She was also 
possessed by the notion that she was destined to occupy 
some particularly high and conspicuous position in the 
world. It might have been thought that she had nourished 
her mind on the extravagant romances of Calprenede and 
Madame Scuderi ; but we are told that she had little liking 
for imaginative literature of any kind, though she had a turn 
for reading and was much given to the perusal of histories, 
and genealogies, and State papers. And, says - Lady Louisa 
Stuart, she had " heated her brains with history as others 
have done with romances," with the result that, wishing to 
make herself comparable with some of the heroines of whom 
she had read, she was reduced to magnifying every common 
matter that concerned herself into the semblance of some- 
thing uncommon. Her personal appearance was certainly 
very uncommon, and, in the opinion of many people, un- 
commonly beautiful. She possessed a majestic figure, a 
handsome neck, and well-shaped amrs, together with a fine 
set of teeth and a very agreeable smile ; but her extremely 
fair hair, dead whiteness of skin, unshaded eyebrows, and 
fiercely brilliant eyes, produced altogether so feline an 
expression as to obtain for her the nickname of " the White 

8 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

Cat." Such was the young damsel, nineteen years of age, 
and with a portion of £12,000, who was selected by Lord 
Leicester to carry on the succession in his family, and to be 
the regenerator of his scapegrace of a son. 

The Duke of Argyll had died in 1743, and the overtures 
of marriage were made by Lord Coke's parents to Duchess 
Jane, through the instrumentality of Lady Gower. The 
Duchess hesitated at first, not so much on account of the 
character and habits of Lord Coke as on account of the 
temper and dissoluteness of his father. But the young man 
contrived to make a very good impression on her, and she 
wrote her married daughter, Lady Dalkeith, saying she 
thought his gambling habits were due to his father's bad 
example and encouragement, also that he had " a very good 
understanding, and a great deal of knowledge, and, I think, 
a sweet disposition." Lady Mary merely said that she had 
no objection ; so the family lawyers on both sides were set to 
work, and after a good deal of bargaining it was settled that 
there should be £500 a year pin-money and a jointure of 
£2,500. But before the lawyers had time to draw up deeds 
to this effect Lady Mary was of another mind. Horace 
Walpole, writing to George Montagu on July 3rd, 1746, 
apropos of certain rumours of marriages, remarks : — 

" I can tell you another wedding more certain and fifty times more 
extraordinary ; it is Lord Coke with Lady Mary Campbell, the Dowager 
of Argyll's youngest daughter. It is all agreed, and was negotiated by 
the Countesses of Gower and Leicester. I don't know why they skipped 
over Lady Betty, who, if there were any question of beauty, is, I think, 
as well as her sister. They drew the girl in to give her consent when 
they first proposed it to her ; but now la belle n'ahne pas trop le Sieur 
Leandre. She cries her eyes to scarlet. He has made her four visits, 
and is so in love that he writes to her every other day. 'Tis a strange 
match. . . . She objects his loving none of her sex but the four queens 
in a pack of cards ; but he promises to abandon White's and both clubs 
for her sake." 

Lord Coke was by no means in love, as Walpole and other 
gossips were led to suppose. He did not like Lady Mary 

9 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

any more than she liked him ; and he was quite as proud 
and as self-willed as she was. But while she treated him 
with flouts and jeers, and, like a heroine of one of the old 
romances, posed as a miserable matrimonial martyr, he kept 
his resentment in reserve, bore all her vagaries with a smiling 
face, and by his respectful attentions and moral discourse 
confirmed his prospective mother-in-law in her opinion of 
the wonderful " sweetness " of his disposition. At last, 
however, in the spring of 1747, Lady Mary suffered herself 
to be led to the altar, exhibiting herself as a reluctant bride, 
who was yet prepared to submit, as in duty bound, to the 
caresses of an unloved husband. But as soon as the young 
couple reached home after the ceremony Lord Coke threw 
off his mask, and, assuring her ladyship that she need be in 
no fear of caresses from him, promptly went off to a tavern 
to carouse with his boon companions, with whom he stayed 
the whole night, making merry over his insolent bride's 
discomfiture. During the courtship his conduct had been 
unwontedly respectable, but now he plunged headlong into 
his former extravagant dissipations ; and whenever he did 
happen to be in his own home he amused himself by ridi- 
culing his wife's mother, attacking the memory of her father, 
and generally abusing the whole clan of the Campbells. In 
August, about three months after the marriage, it was arranged 
that Coke and his wife should spend some time with his 
parents in Norfolk ; but when Lord Leicester's coach-and-six 
called at their house early one morning to take them to 
Holkham, Lady Mary, who was dressed and ready to start, 
was obliged to report that her husband had not yet returned 
from his tavern. When Lord Leicester found that this was 
a constant practice, he was furious, warmly espoused his 
daughter-in-law's side, and declaimed in good set terms 
against the brutishness of his son. Walpole, writing to 
Mann on January 12th, 1748, says : — 

" Lord Coke has demolished himself very fast ; I mean his character. 
You know he was married but last spring. He is always drunk, has lost 

10 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

immense sums at play, and seldom goes home to his wife till eight in 
the morning. The world is vehement on her side ; and not only her 
family, but his own, give him up. At present matters are patching up by 
the mediation of my brother, but, I think, can never go on. She married 
him extremely against her will, and he is at least an out-pensioner of 
Bedlam ; his mother's family have many of them been mad." 

A fortnight later, Lady Hervey wrote saying that things 
were patched up for the present, though, in her opinion, 
when they required so much darning things seldom lasted 
long. However, Lord Coke professed to have mended his 
ways, and sued for a reconciliation, whereupon his father 
once more settled his very considerable gambling debts, and 
expected to find the young couple disposed to make mutual 
concessions and to live with one another at least in outward 
decency, if not in the most perfect private harmony. But, 
to his extreme dismay, Lady Mary now firmly refused to have 
anything to do with such a husband; and Lord Leicester, 
whose one anxiety was that his only son should have an heir to 
carry on the succession, became as furious against her as he 
had been previously enthusiastic in her support. The 
Duchess of Argyll interfered, and only made matters worse. 
Then the Duke of Argyll, Lady Mary's uncle, intervened, 
and proposed an amicable separation ; but this was the very 
last thing the Leicester family were disposed to listen to. 
About the end of June, Horace Walpole, after remarking to 
Conway that the first article in everybody's gazette of gossip 
must be my Lord Coke, goes on to say : — 

" They say that since he has been at Sunning Hill with Lady Mary 
she has made him a declaration in form that she hates him, that she 
always did, and that she always will. This seems to have been a very 
unnecessary notification. However, as you know his part is to be 
extremely in love, he is very miserable upon it ; and relating his woes 
at White's, probably at seven in the morning, he was advised to put 
an end to all this history and shoot himself — an advice they would 
not have given him if he were not insolvent. He has promised to 
consider of it." 

It was just about this time that Henry Bellenden, brother 

of the celebrated beauty Mary Bellenden, maid of honour to 

ii 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

the Princess of Wales, fought a duel with Lord Coke in 
Marylebone Fields in consequence of a quarrel arising out of 
remarks or remonstrances concerning Coke's treatment of 
his wife. They both missed fire, and their seconds parted 
them without either being hurt. But certain very ugly 
reports of this affair became current, as will be seen from the 
following letter of Horace Walpole to George Montagu, 
which is dated July 14th, 1748 : — 

" I heard the history of Lord Coke three thousand ways. I expect 
next winter to hear of no Whigs and Jacobites, no courtiers and 
patriots, but of the Cokes and the Campbells. I do assure you 
the violence is incredible with which this affair is talked over. As the 
Irish mobs used to say ' Butleraboo ' and ' Crumaboo,' you will see the 
women in the assemblies will be bellowing ' Campbellaboo ! ' But, with 
the leave of your violence, I think the whole affair of sending Harry 
Bellenden first to bully Coke and then to murder him is a very shocking 
story, and so bad that I will not believe Lady Mary's family could go 
so far as to let her into the secret of an intention to pistol her husband. 
I heard the relation in an admirable way first from my Lady Suffolk, 
who is one of the ringleaders of the ' Campbellaboos,' and, indeed, a 
woeful story she made of it for poor Coke, interlarding it every minute 
with very villainous epithets bestowed on his lordship by Noel Bluff, 
and when she had run over her string of 'rascal,' 'scoundrel,' etc., she 
would stop and say, ' Lady Dorothy, do I tell your story right ? for you 
know I am very deaf, and perhaps did not hear it exactly.' 

" I have compiled all that is allowed on both sides, and it is very 
certain, for Coke's honour, that his refusing to fight was till he could 
settle the affair of his debts. But two or three wicked circumstances 
on t'other side, never to be got over, are Bellenden's stepping close up 
to him after Coke had fired his last pistol and saying, ' You little dog, 
now I will be the death of you,' and firing, but the pistol missed ; and 
what confirms the intention of these words is its having come out that 
the Duke of Argyll knew that Coke, on having been told that his Grace 
had complained of his usage of Lady Mary, replied, ' Very well 1 Does 
he talk ? Why, it is impossible I should use my wife worse than he 
did his.' When Harry Bellenden left Coke on the road from Sunning, 
the day before the duel, he crossed over to the Duke, which his Grace 
flatly denied, but Lord Gower proved it to his face. I have no doubt 
but a man who would despatch his wife would have no scruple at the 
assassination of a person that should reproach him with it." 

After this affair Coke carried off his wife to Holkham, 

thinking that there he and his father would be better able to 

12 



A GRANDE DAME—LADY MARY COKE 

break down her determination. But she kept to her own 
apartment, assumed the dress and demeanour of an invalid, 
and refused to associate with any of the family. They 
retaliated, not only by being rude to her themselves, but by 
encouraging the servants to be rude also ; and the Leicester 
flunkeys, taking full advantage of so congenial a permission, 
jeered at her as " our Virgin Mary." In March, 1749, Lord 
Coke left Holkham for the society of his old boon companions 
elsewhere, leaving his father a power of attorney to deal with 
Lady Mary according to the strict letter of the law. Lord 
Leicester accordingly, having taken legal advice how far he 
might go in the restraint of a wife who was, as he phrased it, 
" acting contrary to the laws of God and man," dismissed 
Lady Mary's maid, took possession of her letters and papers 
and kept her under lock and key for five or six months. 
Notwithstanding this imprisonment, she contrived by 
bribery or otherwise to correspond with some of her 
relations ; and Mr. Mackenzie, who had lately married her 
sister Betty, espoused her cause, and tried all he knew to 
obtain her release. Fortunately for her, Lord Leicester, in 
spite of his care to have legal advice as to his powers, 
unwittingly overstepped the mark, for when the Duchess of 
Argyll, attended by Mr. Mackenzie and a solicitor, came to 
Holkham and demanded to see her daughter, he refused her 
admittance. Consequently they at once obtained a writ of 
habeas corpus, and Lord Coke was enjoined to produce his 
wife in the Court of King's Bench on the first day of term in 
November. Of course the court was crowded. Duchess 
Jane and her daughters brought as many ladies as possible 
to give Lady Mary countenance, and Lord Leicester and his 
son beat up all the lively, idle young bloods about town to 
support them. When Lady Mary arrived, the mob, in their 
eagerness to get a glimpse of her, broke the window of 
her sedan chair, whereupon the hypocritical Coke sprang 
forward to hand her out, exclaiming as he did so, loud enough 
for the whole crowd to hear, " My dearest love ! Take 

13 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

care you don't hurt yourself." Mrs. Delany, writing to Mrs. 
Dewes on November 20th, says : — 

"All the talk at present is about Lady Mary Cook" (sic) "and her 
strange lord. She has been cruelly treated by him and his father, 
who perhaps will see what I write of him, for he examines all letters 
that pass. He will reap but little satisfaction from that employment, 
and, like listeners, hear no good of himself. There was a great 
meeting at Westminster Hall last Friday, where she was produced in 
court, led in by my Lord Cook (sic). She petitioned for leave to see her 
relations, lawyers, and physicians, which was granted. What next will 
be done nobody knows, but a modest woman is much to be pitied who 
undergoes what she must do if a trial comes on." 

A trial did come on in due course, when Lady Mary sued 
for a divorce on the usual grounds. She appeared in court, 
says Lady Louisa Stuart, dressed in rags and tatters, alleging 
that she was allowed nothing better. Her husband declared, 
on the other hand, that, as her pin-money had never been 
withheld, she might have bought herself anything she 
pleased. She alleged that she was kept in a garret two 
storeys high, they that she refused to inhabit any other 
room in the house. She lost her case, however, by failing to 
prove particular instances of cruelty. She seemed to think 
it quite sufficient to declare that in every respect her usage 
had been barbarous, and that her husband had practised 
" a thousand " acts of cruelty every day. Consequently she 
had to remain in the custody of her husband, although, by 
order of the court, her relations, and lawyers, and a 
physician were permitted to visit her. On December 10th 
Mrs. Delany reports : — 

" Lady Mary Cook " (sic) "is so ill that it is thought she can't live ; she 
is confined to a very dismal, ill-furnished room, tip two pair of stairs. 
I have not yet met one man who does not pity her and detest her 
tyrant. ... If she dies, she has been as much murdered by the severe 
usage she has met with as if she had been poisoned." 

On January 31st following, Walpole wrote Mann that 
Lord Coke also had been reported to be dying, and that 
Lady Mary had recovered wonderfully on receipt of the 

14 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

news. After this Lord Hartington, a friend of both families, 
came in as mediator, and by his means an arrangement was 
effected whereby she was to be allowed to live at Sudbrook 
with her mother, unmolested, and to have her pin-money 
(£500 a year) for maintenance, on condition that she aban- 
doned all legal proceedings and promised never to set foot 
in London during her husband's lifetime. This enforced 
retirement did not last very long, for Lord Coke continued his 
career of riotous dissipation at such a pace that about three 
years after the separation he brought his worthless life to 
an end, at the age of thirty-four. Old Lord Leicester, not- 
withstanding the frustration of all his dearest hopes, went 
doggedly on with the beautification of his princely palace, 
which, however, he was destined never to finish, for, six years 
after the death of his only son, death came to him also, 
when all his titles became extinct, and Holkham Hall passed 
to another branch of the family. 

Lady Mary wore mourning, and abstained from all public 
amusements, for the conventional period, and then, as a 
handsome young widow of twenty-seven who was possessed 
of £2,500 a year might have been expected to do, she 
reappeared in society, and proposed to have a good time of it. 
It is by no means surprising that Lady Mary's friends should 
have contemplated a second marriage for her ; but it seems 
almost beyond the bounds of credibility that in 1756 she 
became betrothed to Lord March, afterwards so well known 
to fame as the " wicked old Q." Horace Walpole makes no 
reference to any such affair, and numerous entries in Lady 
Mary's journal for years afterwards, in which Lord March is 
spoken of, give no indication that he had ever been on terms 
of any particular intimacy with her. Lady Louisa Stuart, 
however, is most circumstantial in her details, and the story 
as she tells it is, briefly, as follows. Lord March, who was 
Lady Mary's senior by two years, was the prince of gamblers 
and racing men, and one of the most dissolute fine gentlemen 
in London ; but he was the acknowledged leader of fashion, 

15 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

and, as heir to the dukedom of Queensberry, he was, of 
course, one of the greatest prizes in the matrimonial market. 
He was most emphatically not a marrying man, and every- 
body knew it. Consequently the Duke and Duchess of Queens- 
berry, who, after the death of their children, lived a very 
retired life at Amesbury, in Wiltshire, were greatly surprised 
to receive a letter from Lady Mary informing them that 
Lord March had proposed to her, but that she would defer 
giving him a favourable answer until she was sure of their 
concurrence. They were as delighted as they were surprised, 
for, being most anxious that March should abandon his wild 
life and settle down, they were ready to receive with open 
arms any lady whose birth and position made her a credit- 
able match. They promptly came to London, ready to do 
everything in their power to hurry on the marriage, when 
they found, to their great astonishment, that March and Lady 
Mary were not even upon speaking terms. He studiously 
ignored her presence when they met in society, spoke of her 
to others in highly disparaging fashion, and made a point of 
appearing in the Park or at Ranelagh, whether Lady Mary 
were there or not, in company with Madame Rena, a dis- 
reputable opera-singer, who ostentatiously took the head of 
his table, and was known to everybody as his acknowledged 
mistress. When the Duchess of Queensberry ventured to ask 
him whether this conduct was quite fair to Lady Mary, he 
coolly inquired, in apparent astonishment, what Lady Mary 
had to do with the matter ; and when the puzzled Duchess 
went on to ask whether he did not mean to marry Lady 
Mary after all, he replied, "Oh no. He was quite 
ready at any time, if her ladyship chose." Thus baffled, the 
bewildered Duchess turned to the lady, and represented to 
her that, as she would evidently have little more chance of 
happiness with March than with her former husband, it would 
perhaps be wise to give him up ; but Lady Mary oracularly 
declared that Lord March had not given her any cause of 
offence, and that she could not doubt his honour, All the 

16 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

time, however, to his friends on the racecourse and in the 
clubs, March was making no secret about what had happened. 
He had made overtures to her, he cynically admitted, as he 
had done over and over again to other good-looking women, 
but no mention of marriage had ever entered his head or 
issued from his lips. Instead, however, of rejecting the un- 
lawful proposals he had made to her, she had pretended to 
understand his first "civil" speech as a proposal of holy 
matrimony, and had artfully led him on until he was en- 
tangled in what everybody looked upon as a betrothal. This 
curious state of affairs appears to have lasted for some little 
time, when, finding neglect, and studious incivility, and the 
ostentatious flaunting of a disreputable mistress of no avail, 
March adopted other measures to get his engagement broken 
by the other party. What he did we are not told ; but Lady 
Louisa Stuart says his conduct was such when he called one 
morning that Lady Mary gave him a vigorous box on the 
ear, and commanded him never to enter her doors again. Of 
course this was just what he wanted, and he drove straight 
off to Queensberry House to communicate the news, pre- 
tending that his heart was more wounded than his ear, but 
at the same time taking particular care to make it unmis- 
takably clear that the lady's breaking of the engagement 
must necessarily be final. 

Two years later there were rumours of another marriage. 
Her sister, Lady Betty Mackenzie, mentions Lord Weymouth 
and also another peer as having been talked about as likely 
husbands ; and a couple of letters from the Duchess of 
Hamilton (Elizabeth Gunning) imply that a certain Prince 
San Severino had proposed and been rejected. It was about 
the same time apparently that Horace Walpole became her 
declared admirer. Probably he became more or less friendh' 
with her soon after she emerged from her retirement, for in 
a letter of May, 1755, he mentions her as one amongst the 
" Bedford Court " whom he entertained at a great breakfast 
at Strawberry Hill ; and in July, 1757, he expresses himself 

n.d. 17 c 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

as "not satisfied" because she has left Sudbrook. But 
writing to Mann on September 2nd, 1758, he goes further 
and describes himself as in love with " the youngest, hand- 
somest, and wittiest widow in England " ; and from that date 
onward not only is she continually mentioned in letters to 
other correspondents, but for a period of fourteen or fifteen 
years he addressed some of the wittiest and friendliest of his 
incomparable letters to herself. Walpole undoubtedly liked 
her very much, and made no secret of his admiration ; but 
some of the expressions in his letters must not be taken too 
literally, for there seems no ground whatever for supposing 
that either she or anybody else ever supposed that he had 
the remotest intention of asking her in marriage. It was the 
custom of that day for a man to address a lady, whether 
young or old, both by speech and by letter, in the language 
of a conventional gallantry. Walpole himself supplies us, in 
one of his letters to Conway, with an indication both of the 
unreality of the sentiments thus usually expressed, and of 
the offence which was likely to be given by any inadvertent 
lapse from the expected standard. Owing to the great dearth 
of candidates to be found in London in the autumn of 1759, 
he says, Lady Mary Coke permitted Count Haslang, the 
Bavarian Ambassador, to " die for her." One day, when on 
a visit to the Holdernesses at Sion, these two were talking 
together in a bow window, when, on a sudden alarm being 
given that dinner was on the table, Haslang expressed great 
joy and appetite. " You can't imagine," adds Walpole, " how 
she was offended." The courtly Horace himself was never 
guilty of a similar lapse ; and when, a few months after this, 
Prince Edward, afterwards Duke of York, asked him jest- 
ingly at the opera one night when he was to marry Lady 
Mary Coke, instead of repudiating any such intention, he 
promptly replied — the military fever being then at its full 
height — " As soon as I get a regiment." Nor was he con- 
tent to let the matter rest at this : the incident had to be 
reported to several correspondents and also to be amplified 

18 



A GRANDE DAME—LADY MARY COKE 

and enlarged upon, in the following fashion, to the lady 
herself: — 

" Arlington Street, 

" December zjth, 1759. 
" Madam— Y' Ladyship will see by what follows that I am impatient 
to advance the term prescribed for my happiness. Intending, like a 
true Knight, to deserve you by my valour, I am going to take a step 
worthy of one who pretends to the honour of your hand. Perhaps 
indeed, it is not perfectly agreeable to the rules of chivalry to avow 
any reason but the true one for devoting mvself to arms ; but as I 
cannot expect a regiment but by flattering a Minister in his own way 
I am forced to ascribe to the Love of my country what your Ladyship 
knows to proceed from nothing but my Passion. Mr. Pitt is so weak 
as to prefer the honour of England even to your charms. If by 
humouring him I can possess them, a little insincerity may be pardoned 
in a Lover. You must impute to the same cause, Madam, my speaking 
with any disesteem of sinecures— a thing which, tho' I possess, I should 
certainly disdain if it was not with a view to those beautiful children 
with which I flatter myself I shall be blessed. In short, Madam here 
follows my petition. If you approve, I will send it ; if it is not worthy 
the cause in which it is written, be so good as to fling it into the fire, 
& I will think of some other way of being 

" Y r Ladyship's 

" Hor. Walpole." 
The verses enclosed in this letter, which are not included 
in Horace Walpole's collected works, run as follows :— 
"To Mr. Pitt. 
11 To raise a Troop a thousand ask ; 

To please 'em all how hard a task! 

For, whether they are Whig or Tory, 

You've vow'd (a thing unheard in story) 

To grant what's asked for England's glory. 

I too, S r , on great actions bent, 

Propose to raise a regiment; 

But, as my honest heart, like yours, 

Abhors all kinds of Sinecures, 

If but a Troop or Company, 

In the French Service let it be, 

For you, Engrosser, have no longer 

Left Britons anything to conquer." 

Amongst Mr. Drummond-Moray's papers was found an 
answer to this copy of verses, which the editor of Lady 

19 C2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

Mary's journal says is neither in her handwriting nor such 
a composition as could have been expected from her ; and, 
as it is not in Walpole's handwriting either, Mr. Home 
supposes it to have been written by Lady Temple, the style 
being rather like hers, and there being few other ladies at 
that date who could have written it : — 

" Ly M. to Mr. W. 

" A very pretty scheme you've hit on, 
Sir, to petition Mr. Pitt on, 
A Regiment in France to win me ! 
Each drop of Campbell blood within me 
Boils at the thought of such a motion; 
And then it's so profound a notion, 
The mighty fortune you are carving, 
Just then when all the world are starving. 
I hate the French and all their race ; 
I'd tell it to the Tyrant's face. 
No, if I am a soldier's spouse, 
Give me your Wolfes, your Clives, your Howes ; 
One sturdy Briton, I'll be swore, 
Is worth three French monsieurs and more; 
But since your ardour is so great 
By weighty deeds to serve the State, 
And, as you say, each path to honour 
Is occupied by some ForerunneT, 
Since I, too, with as warm a zeal 
Burn to promote the Publick Weal, 
What if, without all this delay, 
You e'en shoud take me while you may, 
And raise recruits another way ? " 

But if it were apparently the greatest concern of Lady 
Mary's friends to get her married again, her own greatest 
concern was to insinuate herself into the Court circle, a 
matter not very easy of accomplishment by an unattached 
daughter of the late Duke of Argyll. Little help could be 
given by Duchess Jane, who had long since severed her 
connection with Court circles, and was now living in retire- 
ment at Sudbrook. And perhaps little more help could be 
afforded by Lady Mary's sisters, although " the most noisy, 

20 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

hoydening girls in London" were all now appropriately 
married and settled. They were all remarkable women in 
their several ways; and as they will be only incidentally 
mentioned in the following pages, it may be as well in this 
place to state briefly what became of them. Lady Caroline, 
the eldest, privately engaged herself (that is to say, with the 
knowledge of her mother and sisters, but unknown to her 
father) to Lord Lichfield, or Lord Quarendon as he then 
was. In 1742, when she was twenty-four years of age, the 
Duke, her father, thinking it quite unnecessary to consult 
her, arranged that she should marry Lord Dalkeith, eldest 
son of the Duke of Buccleuch. This unexpected command 
made her very ill, so that she was confined to bed for many 
days, and was so delirious that her physicians had little hope 
of her recovery. But she did recover; and after a short 
time duty conquered inclination, and she married the man of 
her father's choice. She used to say afterwards that she 
subsequently found Lord Dalkeith so excellent a man that 
she was bound to acknowledge the Duke's judgment in the 
matter to be better than her own. After eight years of 
wedded bliss, however, Lord Dalkeith died, and although 
she remained a widow for five years, in 1755 she determined 
to risk her own judgment in a second venture, and married the 
Right Hon. Charles Townshend, the brilliant and celebrated 
statesman. When he died, in 1767, she was created Baroness 
Greenwich in her own right. She died at Sudbrook in 1794, 
at the age of seventy-six. Lady Anne, who married the Earl 
of Strafford in 1741, when he was only nineteen years of age, 
was a great beauty ; but she suffered from the " falling 
sickness," so that her husband was obliged to put considerable 
restraint on her actions. Wherever she might be, whether 
at home or abroad, several footmen were always kept waiting 
below stairs, unknown to her, ready to rush in and hold her 
when an attack of convulsions came on. She never realised 
how severe these attacks were, and would sometimes 
unconcernedly refer to them as the " little faintings " to 

21 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

which she knew she was subject now and then. One day in 
February, 1785, her servants opened the door of her dressing- 
room in Wentworth Castle, and found their mistress lying 
against the fire-grate so severely burned that she died a few 
days afterwards. Lady Betty, the third sister, married Mr. 
James Stuart Mackenzie, of Rosehaugh. She is described 
as being more like her mother than any of the others : honest, 
well-meaning, and even warm-hearted, but ill-mannered 
and as capricious as a weathercock. She soon obtained an 
extraordinary influence over her husband ; and her habit of 
command at home begot a certain peremptoriness in society 
which was not always welcome. Lady Anne Pitt, sister of 
the great commoner, once said, " Lady Betty takes the 
liberty in society of telling one that one lies, and that one 
is a fool ; and I cannot say that I think it at all agreeable." 
Of course it was not agreeable, although in a good many 
cases, doubtless, it was only too true. But we must return 
to Lady Mary, who, notwithstanding the difficulties in her 
way, very soon effected her entrance into the sacred circle of 
the Court. She managed this partly by setting herself to 
acquire the favour of Princess Amelia, George the Second's 
unmarried daughter, and partly by cultivating the friendship 
of Lady Yarmouth, the King's elderly mistress, between 
whom and his Majesty it pleased Lady Mary to assume that 
there must have been a private marriage. Lady Yarmouth, 
it will be remembered, was the sometime Madame de 
Walmoden who had been brought over from Hanover by 
George the Second soon after the death of Queen Caroline, 
and who is now memorable for little beyond the fact that 
she happens to be the last recognised royal mistress 
that a King of England ventured to raise to the peerage. 
A real friendship seems to have sprung up between these 
two, for after the King's death, when Lady Yarmouth, of 
course, became a person of no importance at all, Lady Mary 
remained on affectionate terms with her to the day of her 
death. The Princess Amelia was another sort of person 

22 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

altogether. She had been for some time the intended wife 
of Frederick (the Great) of Prussia, who corresponded with 
her until his marriage in 1773. She was afterwards thought 
by many of that class of " well-informed" persons who, as 
Lord Chesterfield used to say, know everything, and know 
everything wrong, to be privately married to the Duke of 
Grafton. But apparently she never gave a thought to 
anybody after her disappointment in the case of the great 
Frederick ; and when she died it was discovered that she had 
always worn a miniature of him next to her heart. She did not 
become attached to Lady Mary as Lady Yarmouth did, being, 
indeed, alternately amused and annoyed at her vagaries, but 
for five-and-twenty years Lady Mary was a constant guest at 
the dinners and card-parties which her Royal Highness gave 
at Gunnersbury or at her house in Cavendish Square. 

It was seldom that Walpole did anything but make fun of 
Lady Mary's pretensions to influence in affairs ; but once in 
his life at least he seems to have thought that she might be 
able to secure a military appointment for one of his proteges. 
The following letter is not dated ; but from internal evidence 
it must have been written some time between 1757 and 1759 : — 

" Dear Madam, — Woud you take me for a solicitor ? You must, 
since I consider you as a Minister, & the only one of whom I woud 
ask a favour. The greatest man in this country to military eyes is my 
Lord Ligonier. Now all the world knows you govern him. I want an 
advancement for a young man who has served some time, & with 
great gallantry, & whose family are the worthiest people on earth. 
Yet I will not deceive you, there is an objection to him, the one he 
cannot help, but I have too great a regard for you not to respect your 
Ladyship's prejudices : in short, he is a Scotchman, a nation you don't 
love. However, if you can surmount y r aversion, it will exceedingly 
oblige me. I am so unfortunate as to love that unfashionable people, 
and wish to serve them. Command my Lord Ligonier to grant the 
enclosed request ; the more earnest you are, the more generous the 
action will be ; in short, if you don't do it, I will not believe, what 
hitherto I always had believed, that even Fourscore cannot resist 
you. You must not be content that I, who am but half-way, am your 
absolute slave. 

" Hor. Walpole. How is your cold ? " 

23 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

The reference to her prejudice against Scotchmen is some- 
what ambiguous. On the face of it, it would seem to be only 
Walpole's ironical way of recommending his protege to a 
daughter of a Duke of Argyll. On the other hand, it is a 
highly curious circumstance, considering her parentage, that 
she visited Scotland but twice in her life, once with her 
father and one of her sisters in early days, and once in 1759. 
Whether or not she was able to secure the appointment for 
Walpole's protege does not appear ; but she and Lord 
Ligonier were on the best of terms for many years. He 
was the only person, she declares, from whom she ever 
accepted an obligation, and when he died, in 1770, at the age 
of ninety-one, he left her a hundred pounds to buy a ring in 
remembrance of " a faithful friend and servant." 

Walpole's next letter to her, which is dated from Arlington 
Street, February 19th, 1760, is not so intelligible as it might 
be, because the humorous letter to which it refers has not been 
preserved with Lady Mary's other papers : — 

" Thank you, Madam, for letting me see this letter. There is a great 
deal of humour in it, and it diverted me so much that if I had asked, 
& had y r leave, I woud willingly have taken a copy of it ; but indeed 
I have not. There was, I daresay, a very pretty supplement to the 
Story, which y r Ladyship did not tell me. Did not-the Duke show he 
was pleased with the letter ? Your father had too much wit not to feel 
for a man who had the least portion of it. It is happy to have temper 
enough to joke oneself out of a prison, but it is happier to be able to 
deliver a man who jokes there ; & therefore, Madam, if you knew the 
latter part of the story, you are a most undutiful Daughter for not 
telling it. Don't fancy because you are silent about your own Virtues 
that you may take the same liberty with those of other people. It is 
well the Duke of Argyll's reputation is established. I see it woud 
never have been spread had it depended on his own children. He was 
forced to owe it to strangers. In short, Madam, I am very angry, & if 
I coud help it, I woud not be 

" Yr most devoted 

" Humble Sert., 

"Hor. Walpole." 

Later on in the course of this year we find an occasional 
joke in his letters to others about his sufferings from the gout, 

24 



A GRANDE DAME—LADY MARY COKE 

and from his love for Lady Mary Coke, and an occasional 
mention of meeting her at some princely country mansion or 
other ; but apparently he did not write to her again until the 
beginning of the following year. Then, however, he made 
amends, both by the length and the quality of his epistle, 
which is dated from Newmarket, February 12th, 1761, at 
which place he rested on his journey to the family borough 
of King's Lynn, whose inactive and inattentive M.P. he had 
been for the past four years : — 

" You woud be puzzled to guess, Madam, the reflections into which 
Solitude & an Inn have thrown me. Perhaps you will imagine that I am 
regretting not being at Loo at Princess Emily's, or that I am detesting 
the Corporation of Lynn for dragging me from the amusements of 
London, perhaps that I am meditating what I shall say to a set of 
people I never saw, or — which woud be more like me — determining 
to be out of humour the whole time I am there, and show how little I 
care whether they elect me again or not. If your absolute sovereignty 
over me did not exclude all jealousy, you might probably suspect that the 
Duchess of Grafton " [afterwards Lady Ossory and a favourite corre- 
spondent of his] " has at least as much share in my chagrin as Pam " 
[i.e., the game of Loo] " himself. Come nearer to the point, Madam, 
& conclude that I am thinking of Lady Mary Coke, but in a style 
much more becoming so sentimental a Lover than if I was merely 
concerned for your absence. In short, Madam, I am pitying you, 
actually pitying you 1 How debasing a thought for your dignity ! but 
hear me. I am lamenting your fate : that you, with all your charms 
and all your merit, are not yet immortal. Is it not provoking that, 
with so t many admirers and so many pretensions, you are likely to be 
adored only so long as you live ? Charming, in an age when Britain is 
victorious in every quarter of the Globe, you are not yet enrolled in the 
annals of its fame ! Shall Wolfe and Boscawen & Amherst be the 
talk of future ages, & the name of Mary Coke not be known ? 'Tis 
the height of disgrace. When was there a nation that excelled the 
rest of the world whose Beauties were not as celebrated as its Heroes 
& its Orators ? Thais, Aspasia, Livia, Octavia — I beg pardon for 
mentioning any but the Last when I am alluding to you — are as 
familiar to us as Alexander, Pericles, or Augustus ; & except the 
Spartan Ladies, who were always locked up in the two pair of stairs 
making child-bed linen and round-eared caps, there never were any 
women of fashion in a gloriously civilised country but who had cards 
sent to invite them to the Temple of Fame in common with those 
drudges, the men, who had done the dirty work of honour. I say 

25 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

nothing of Spain, where they had so true a notion of gallantry that 
they never ventured having their brains knocked out but with a view 
to the glory of their Mistress. If her name was but renowned from 
Segovia to Saragossa, they thought all the world knew it and were 
content. Nay, Madam, if you had but been lucky enough to be born 
in France a thousand years ago, that is fifty or sixty, you woud have 
gone down to eternity hand in hand with Louis Quatorze ; & the Sun 
woud never have shined on him, as it did purely for seventy years, but 
a ray of it woud have fallen to your share. You woud have helped 
him to pass the Rhine & been coupled with him at least in a 
Bout rime. 

" And what are we thinking of? Shall we suffer posterity to imagine 
that we have shed all this blood to engross the pitiful continent of 
America ? Did General Clive drop from Heaven only to get half as 
much as Wortley Montagu ? Yet this they must suppose, unless we 
immediately set about to inform them in authentic verse that your 
Eyes & half a dozen other pair lighted up all this blaze of glory. I 
will take my death your Ladyship was one of the first admirers of 
Mr. Pitt, & all the world knows that his Eloquence gave this spirit 
to our arms. But, unluckily, my deposition can only be given in prose. 
I am neither an Hero nor a Poet. Tho' I am as much in love as if I had 
cut a thousand throats, or made ten thousand verses, posterity will 
never know anything of my passion. Poets alone are permitted to tell 
the real truth. Tho' a Historian shoud, with as many asseverations 
as Bishop Burnet, inform mankind that the lustre of the British arms 
under George 2nd was singly & entirely owing to the charms of Lady 
Mary Coke, it woud not be believed. The slightest hint of it in a stanza 
of Gray woud carry conviction to the end of time. 

" Thus, Madam, I have laid your case before you. You may, as you 
have done, inspire Mr. Pitt with nobler orations than were uttered in 
the House of Commons of Greece or Rome; you may set all the world 
together by the ears ; you may send for all the cannon from Cherbourg, 
all the scalps from Quebec, or for every Nabob's head in the Indies ; 
posterity will not be a jot the wiser, unless you give the word of 
command from Berkeley Square in an ode, or you & I meet in the 
groves of Sudbrook in the midst of an epic poem. 'Tis a vexatious 
thought, but y r Ladyship & this age of triumphs will be forgotten 
unless somebody writes verses worthy of you both. 

" I am your Ladyship's 

" Most devoted Slave, 

" Hor. Walpole." 

Old George the Second was gathered to his fathers, and 
young George the Third ascended the throne in October, 
1760. In those days one of the most important festivities of 

26 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

the year was the sovereign's birthday, when all the nobility 
and gentry in London, male as well as female, vied with one 
another in the magnificence of the new clothes in which they 
presented themselves to congratulate their monarch at the 
palace of St. James's. George the Third's birthday was 
June 4th, and, of course, Lady Mary was particularly anxious 
to show herself and her new dress at the first of these loyal 
celebrations. But for some little time previously she had 
been out of health, and consequently her gallant corre- 
spondent tried to dissuade her from running any risks. 
Assuming for the nonce the character of her spiritual adviser, 
he delivered himself of a moral discourse to the following 
effect : — 

" A Sermon on abstaining from Birthdays on certain occasions, 
preached before the Right Honourable the Lady Mary Coke on 

Sunday, May 31st, 1761, by H. W , D.D., Chaplain to her 

Ladyship and Minister of St. Mary, Strawberry Hill. 

" ' Blessed is the Woman that abstaineth from Birthdays, because of the 
Angels.' — Epistle of St. Luke to the Camelinthians, chap, iii., v. 7. 

" In treating the words which I have just read to you, and which 
have given occasion to much disputation, I shall endeavour two things : 
first, to show what the words do not mean, and in the second place, to 
discover their real import ; and when that is once settled I shall place 
before you the duty of obedience to the advice of the Apostle. Some 
overweening Men, too fond of casting stumbling-blocks in the way of 
their brethren, have superstitiously taken a handle from the words of 
my text to prohibit simple women, their followers, from paying the first 
duty of attendance on the Lord's Annointed, and congratulating him in 
Christian Charity on the day of his entrance into this sublunary world, 
a duty which, give me leave to observe, is nowhere forbidden in the 
Gospel, but which has been practised in all orthodox societies since the 
cessation of persecution and the conversion of the heathen Emperors 
to Christianity. St. Clement Cotterellianus, in his epistle to that holy 
virgin St. Lubrica, says, ' Shall the pagans celebrate the festivals of 
their idols, shall they burn incense before them on the supposed 
anniversary of their nativity, and shall not the faithfull much more 
rejoice on the birthday of him ' (meaning Constantine) 'who hath planted 
the Cross on the temples of those false gods ? O Lubrica, the palace 
is now the shrine of truth. Veil not thy face, nor cover thy neck, but 
enter into the penetralia of our most blessed Emperor, and salute him 

27 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

on his proper feast.' But the reason now given for dereliction of this 
commendable practice is more extraordinary than the prohibition itself : 
1 Blessed is the Woman that abstaineth from Birthdays, because of the 
Angels' ; that is, say these interpreters, it is not meet for a Christian 
Matron to deck herself out and put on her choicest ornaments, as is 
customary on these festivals, because the Angels, who, the Rabbins 
pretend, have been tempted to covet beautiful women, and who watch 
over the palaces of Princes, may be drawn into sin by the sight of such 
lovely objects. But this interpretation is grossly erroneous, carnal, 
and partial, as I shall show. It is erroneous, because we nowhere read 
in the inspired writers of any such sinful communication between a 
superior order of Beings and us Mortals since the Deluge, and it is 
not to be supposed that the Apostle woud give injunctions against 
what was never likely to happen ; it is carnal — my respect for the 
blushes of this audience forbids my expatiating on this subject, and 
those blushes inform me that a further discussion woud be unneces- 
sary — and it is partial, because a precept delivered in general words 
must be calculated for the generality. Now, if there were any meaning 
in this forced construction, the Apostle woud exclude all the young and 
more amiable of their Sex from paying the duty owed by subjects to 
their Sovereign, and woud fill his Court with none but the aged and 
deformed, for I suppose those refined commentators do not imagine 
that the Angels woud be in any danger of sinning even in thought by 
the sight of the most sumptuous Hags and most painted and most 
patched Beldames. This, therefore, cannot be the meaning of the 
text. 

" I shall endeavour, secondly, to show what it does mean. And 
in sifting into any ambiguous passage which does not at first present 
an obvious meaning, we must search for collateral assistance, and 
endeavour to collect from the language, situation, or circumstances of 
the Writer, and from the age in which he wrote, and from the persons 
to whom he addressed himself, what was most probably the scope he 
had in view, and how his words may be best rendered so as to answer 
his purpose. By trying the passage before us on this touchstone, we 
may in all likelihood arrive at a certain knowledge of the Apostle's 
intention. 

"The Epistle is addressed to the Camelinthians, a most beautiful 
race of people inhabiting the north-west coast of Thessalonica, whose 
females were remarkably tender, delicate, and loyal. It was written 
at the beginning of the reign of Theodosius the Third, the most hopefull 
young Prince that had ever ascended the throne of the Caesars. History 
informs us that Mary, a noble Lady of the Race I have mentioned, and 
of the most exact harmony of features and person, was noted for her 
singular attachment to the Emperor, in opposition to the pretensions 
of the Tyrant Basilides. She was but just recovered from a dangerous 

28 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

illness, which she had born with the highest fortitude and Christian 
resignation, when Theodosius assumed the reins of empire. The young 
Lady was eager to present herself before him on the anniversary of his 
birth, notwithstanding the representations and solicitude of her friends 
and family. All these circumstances we are informed of by Eusebius, 
and they are a full explanation of the sense of the Apostle in the chapter 
before us. St. Luke wrote in Greek, and was, moreover, a Physician. 
It did not become him to specify the particular case that he had in his 
eye, but he plainly included it in general words, which he intended for 
eternal instruction at the same time that, in his secondary capacity of 
Physician, he had a regard to the welfare of our bodies as well as to 
that of our souls. ' It is good, 1 says he, 'for a woman to abstain from 
birthdays, because of the Angels' ; that is, because of the Physicians, or, 
paraphrastically, because by frequenting such crowded ceremonies she 
may prejudice her health and be obliged to have recourse to the 
Physician ; and I presume that I make no forced inference if I say that 
a woman cannot be blessed — ergo, she sins— if she damages her health 
by risking it unnecessarily or imprudently ; and this is no wrested 
interpretation, as the Greek word angelos signifies a Messenger, and, 
metaphorically, a Messenger of health, i.e., a physician. Having thus 
explained to you both what is not the meaning of the Text and what 
is, I shall now draw a few natural inferences, and then conclude. The 
Apostle condemns such women as frequent Birthdays when their health 
is not perfectly established. ' Can you,' he seems to say, ' rejoice with a 
pale countenance, or with what propriety can you wish Health, bearing 
the tokens of sickness in yourself ? ' ' Come not into my house with 
leanness,' says the Evangelist ; and one of the sublimest of the Prophets, 
speaking in the figurative expression of the East, cries out, ' Strew not my 
floors with withered lillies, nor cover me with roses that have lost their smell.'' 
Again, Solomon, the wisest of Kings and most exquisite judge of beauty, 
declares his opinion to the same effect : ' My beloved came to my chamber 
on my birthday ; Health was in her cheek, and her breath smelt as the young 
Roe's, that has never tasted medicine.' I am aware that this last text is 
applied by the Papists to the Church before the Reformation, but the 
words are so simple and natural that there is no reason to think they 
contain any hidden allegory ; on the contrary, St. Luke's Epistle seems 
a commentary on the rapturous breathings of the sapient King. To us 
Christians there is a still higher duty : Health is the best gift of Heaven, 
and is not to be sported with on every vain occasion. We are not 
allowed, even by acts of devotion, to mortify our bodies beyond what 
they will bear, much less to macerate and torture them on worldly 
occasions, and for the sake of Babylonish show. How woud our spirit 
tremble and sink if, precipitating our exit by some such light occasion, 
we shoud, on rushing into another world, be asked that terrible question, 
1 Soul, how earnest thou hither ? ' and shoud have nothing to answer 

29 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

but ' I caught my death at a Birthday,' — which that we may none of 
us do," etc., etc. 

This sermon, which, if recited in the tone and manner of 
some cleric of their acquaintance, probably made a fair 
enough parody on the kind of discourse that Lady Mary and 
Horace Walpole would frequently have listened to together 
in the church of Richmond or of Twickenham, did not, how- 
ever, meet with her Ladyship's approbation. She does not 
appear to have objected to its rather laboured wit, nor to what 
some ladies would have considered its flavour of profanity, 
but the pretended quotations about leanness, and withered 
lilies, and roses that had lost their smell, seemed to her to 
imply that he believed her illness to have spoilt her good 
looks, and she resented it accordingly. Her letter on the 
subject has not been preserved, but two days later he 
endeavoured to smooth her down as follows : — 

" Strawberry Hill, 

"June 3rd, 1761. 
" Dear Madam, — I will renounce my new vocation if my zeal hath 
eaten you up. I intended to laugh you out of danger, but I resign all 
the honour that has attended my preaching if I have given you an 
uneasy moment or a disagreeable thought. You answer me too 
seriously upon the foot of looks ; I wish I coud always justify myself as 
well as I can on this chapter I Did ever any man tell a very pretty 
woman that she looked ill but when it was in her power to look well, or 
when she was sure of looking well immediately ? It is brutal — a 
behaviour I think your Ladyship cannot suspect me of — to tell a woman 
her beauty is gone ; it is kind to warn her to preserve it, or to take care 
to recover it when it is clouded by sickness. I don't love to put myself 
too much in your power, but how are you sure that I was not jealous 
lest anybody shoud look better than you at the Birthday ? I knew you 
woud not borrow any bloom ; I knew a little time woud restore it. It is 
for the honour of my passion that you shoud never be seen without 
being admired, & it imported to my glory that Lady Mary Coke shoud 
rather be missed at the first birthday of the King than that a charm of 
hers shoud be missing. But I had a better reason than all these : I was 
seriously afraid of your hurting yourself, & my having staggered your 
resolution proves to me that if our Divines make no more converts it is 
because they do not feel what they preach. I was eloquent because I 
spoke from my heart. 

30 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

" I propose to be in town on Friday, & shall be happy to receive 
your commands for a visit to Strawberry — if Strawberry is not drowned. 
I have scarce been able to stir out of the house since Monday morning. 
My workmen are all at a stand, & the Deluge seems to be arrived 
before my ark is half ready. Adieu, Madam. 

" Y r most faithfull 

"humble Sert., 

" Hor. Walpole." 

Walpole wrote to many of his correspondents about Lady 
Mary in much the same gallant style that he invariably 
adopted in his letters to herself. But with all his admiration, 
which was evidently genuine enough, no one more clearly 
saw her faults and foibles ; and there is always an undertone 
of subtle raillery, which she does not seem to have felt, 
but which was quite patent to anybody else. When she 
went to the Continent in the spring of 1761, he enjoined 
Conway to tell him how many burgomasters she subdued, 
or how many would have fallen in love with her if they had 
not fallen asleep instead, whether her charms caused the inn- 
keepers to abate something of their usual impositions, 
whether she realised how politically significant her journey 
was considered to be, and so forth. And when, in December 
of that year, he composed some lines extempore (such things, 
of course, were always extempore) on the St. Anthony's fire 
in her cheek, the verses were sent, not only to the lady 
herself, but to other friends and acquaintances as well. 
Doubtless he was quite well aware that he had a very pretty 
gift for this style of compliment both in prose and in verse, 
and was as much in love with his own compositions as with 
the person who gave occasion for them. These are the 

verses : — 

" On Lady Mary Coke having St. Anthony's 

Fire in her Cheek. 
" No rouge you wear, nor can a dart 
From Love's bright quiver wound your heart ; 
And thought you Cupid and his Mother 
Would unrevenged their anger smother ? 
No, no, from Heaven they sent the fire 
That boasts St. Anthony its sire ; 

31 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

They poured it on one peccant part, 

Inflamed your cheek, if not your heart. 

In vain — for see the crimson rise 

And dart fresh lustre through your eyes, 

While ruddier drops and baffled pain 

Enhance the white they mean to stain. 

Ah ! nymph, on that unfading face 

With fruitless pencil Time shall trace 

His lines malignant, since disease 

But gives you mightier powers to please." 

We may take it for granted that this was much more 
acceptable than the references to withered lilies, etc., in his 
mock sermon. 

Early in the following summer Lady Mary appears to 
have made another little jaunt abroad, and to have had some 
trouble with the authorities at Calais. It was probably a 
matter scarce worth mentioning twice, but her knight of the 
pen deftly weaved it into his next complimentary epistle. 
Towards the end of June news of a British victory over the 
French reached London. Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick 
and the Marquis of Granby had made a successful attack on 
the French on the 24th of the previous month, surprising the 
army under Marshals d'Estrees and Soubise at their camp at 
Cassel, in Westphalia, and taking a large number of prisoners. 
On receipt of this intelligence Walpole at once sat down and 

wrote as follows : — 

" Strawberry Hill, 

'•'■June 30th, 1762. 
" When Britons are victorious, it is impossible not to congratulate the 
first Heroine of Britain. Pray, Madam, did your Ladyship command 
Prince Ferdinand to attack the French camp in revenge for the Governor 
of Calais presuming to attempt making you a Prisoner ? or did the 
spirit of John, Duke of Argyle, inspire his countrymen with this ardour, 
& vindicate his Daughter from such an insult ? I have told my Lord 
Hertford that I expect to hear y r Ladyship has made a triumphant 
entry into our headquarters, & that with becoming dignity you have 
obtained from our General the liberty of the 200 French officers, a proper 
way of resenting your confinement. Go to the army you certainly will. 
Steel waters you cannot want, you who want nothing but a helmet to be 
taken for Britannia. Pray let me know in time. It woud be most shameful 

32 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

in me to be languishing under an Acacia while my Sovereign Lady is at 
the head of a Squadron. All our other Militant Dames have followed 
their Husbands ; your Ladyship will follow Victory, and influence 
more. It is grievous that one female Campbell should have quitted 
Germany at the opening of a Campaign. No, I will go fetch my Lady 
Ailesbury from Park Place, and my Lady Cecilia, who is not big enough 
yet to hurt Master Johnson's head by wearing a coat of mail, tho' I fear 
she & I shall look a little like starved vultures that follow the army for 
prey. As to peace, it is now undoubtedly removed to a great distance ; 
there can be no end of war while another Mary has Calais written on her 
heart, & a Mary whose heart will not easily break. I know, to my 
sorrow, how invulnerable it is. Well ! I can but go and be killed. I 
shall die in your sight, & you will avenge my death, tho' you woud not 
save my life. I did not think this woud be my end, but the King of 
Prussia and other great men have been made Heroes, whom nature 
never intended for the profession, yet I cannot help laughing to think 
what a figure I shall make ! for I am too much a Goth & not so much an 
Hero, but I will be completely armed, & from my own armoury here : 
a rusty helmet with rotten wadding ; a coat of mail that came from 
Combe, & belonged to a trooper of the Earl of Warwick : it will be 
full heavy for my strength, but there is a mark of its being bullet-proof 
— alas ' I had forgot I am to be shot — one gauntlet : I have no more ; a 
Persian shield enamelled ; a Chinese bow, quiver, & arrows ; an Indian 
sabre & dagger; & a Spear made of wood with fifty points. Dear 
Lady, don't set out without me ; stay for S r Scudamore. Cannot you 
find any little episode to amuse you in the meantime ? How has the 
Bishop of Liege behaved to you ? Has he neglected to kiss the hem of 
your garment ? Dispossess him ; order the Chapter to elect another. 
I flatter myself you cannot want warfare. ' Confined to an Inn I S r , I 
never was a Prisoner yet ; I will not stay a moment in your town.' 
Dear Lady Mary, how I honour your spirit 1 I can give you a very good 
account of part of your family. I was at Sudbrook this evening & saw 
the Duchess and Lady Betty in perfect health. Mr. McKinsy " (sic) 
" told me of the battle. 

" If you had not had my heart before, you woud have won it by your 
kind attention to Lady Hertford ; but I fear all is in vain. She will 
not hear of Spa, & is gone to-day to Ragley, & I doubt, will go to 
Ireland. Nothing touches her about herself. She is as indifferent to 
that as active & anxious about her family. Adieu, Madam, whether 
we meet on the banks of the Elbe or the Thames, you know I am 

" Most devotedly yours, 

" Hor. Walpole." 

In the course of the year 1763 we get an occasional glimpse 
of her Ladyship at the Opera, at somebody's magnificent 

n.d. 33 D 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

entertainment, or at Court. Walpole mentions her as one 
amongst a large company, including Madame de Boufflers 
and other French people, at Strawberry Hill. In the cha- 
racter of Imoinda, she was one of the principal beauties of the 
night at a grand masquerade at Richmond House. Prince 
de Masseran brought over for her a gown from Paris 
(smuggled through in all probability), which she was greatly 
disappointed to find a comparatively simple one, instead of a 
specially handsome dress which had been bought for her by 
Lady Holland, wherefore Lord Hertford was instructed, 
through Horace Walpole, that the finer garment must be got 
over the Channel somehow, even if a special ambassador 
were necessary for the purpose. No doubt she did really 
make a very fine figure in society at this time, for Walpole 
was not the only person to celebrate her charms in verse. 
One day, at the Princess Amelia's, Lady Temple produced 
the following verses (impromptu, of course), and the Princess 
was afterwards much upbraided by Lady Mary for showing 
them to everybody else, but not to the person on whom 
they were written. Coming as they do from a rival female 
courtier, they may be considered as infinitely more compli- 
mentary than if they proceeded from the pen of a declared 
male admirer such as Walpole : — 

" She sometimes laughs, but never loud ; 
She's handsome too, but somewhat proud ; 
At Court she bears away the belle ; 
She dresses fine, and figures well ; 
With decency, she's gay and airy ; 
Who can this be but Lady Mary ? " 

In 1764 her mother died, and it may be presumed that she 
went into strict retirement, for no mention of her is to be 
found until the autumn of 1765, when Walpole, writing to her 
brother-in-law, Lord Strafford, apropos of an approaching 
visit to Paris, observes that he is sure to enjoy himself during 
the earlier part of the time at least, because Lady Mary will 
be there, " as if by assignation." As it happened, he met her 

34 



A GRANDE DA ME— LADY MARY COKE 

before he reached Paris, for in a letter to Conway from 
Amiens on September nth he says that when about 
half a mile from that town he saw coming towards him a 
coach-and-four, wherein sat a lady in pea-green and silver, 
with a very smart hat and feather, recognising whom he 
jumped out of his chaise, fell on his knees, and said his first 
Ave Maria, gratid plena ; but after a short interchange of gossip 
they shook hands and parted, she going to the Hereditary 
Princess, he to his inn. Before long she returned to England, 
but he remained in Paris for some months, whence on 
October 15th he addressed to her the following gossipy 
letter. His falling in love three times presumably refers to 
the admiration he felt, and expresses elsewhere, for Madame 
de Rochefort, Madame de Mirepoix, and Madame de Monaco. 
It may also, perhaps, be necessary to explain, as he does 
explain in a letter to Conway, that the " beast of the 
Gevaudan " was an exceedingly large wolf, which was 
alleged to have " twelve teeth more than any other wolf ever 
had since the days of Romulus's wet-nurse," and which was 
shown in the Queen's antechamber " with as much parade 
as if it was Mr. Pitt." 

" As, to be sure, Lady Mary, you have read the works of every 
Horace that ever writ, you may remember that one of us has said 
something like this : Caelum 11011 podagram mutant qui trans mare 
currunt. The verse, as I quote it, is a little lame, but you must 
consider it has got the gout. So, alas! have I. Is it not moving to be 
cut off in the bud of one's curiosity, and at the entrance of a new career 
that promised so bright a campaign ? For I must confess all my 
infidelities. You are accustomed to hear and pardon them. In two 
days I fell in love three times ; & the Lord knows how large the 
building of my seraglio must have been, if this wicked Gout had not 
stepped in between me and the digging of the foundations. I do not 
let it proceed, lest it shoud be taken for an Hospital, especially as one 
or two of my Passions approach nearer to the age of Invalids than of 
Sultanas. The affront to your sovereign charms, I own, is aggravated 
by my going to fish into the last age for subjects of Inconstancy ; but 
what signifies it ? I always return to you ; and at last you will have no 
competitor left but the Gout, who is si aimable ! 

"Your Ladyship, who only glanced at Paris, saw more of it than I 

35 D2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

have. However, before I was confined I had the fortune to be treated 
with the sight of what, next to Mr. Pitt, has occasioned most alarm in 
France, the Beast of the Gevaudan. It was in the Queen's antichamber 
at Verseilles when I was presented to her. The first bracelets that are 
made of its hair, you shall have one. It has left an Andromache and 
four little Princes. The Savage Dowager wanted Monsieur d'Alembert 
to educate her cubs, but having refused the Czarina, he coud not 
decently undertake the charge, tho' there were more hopes of unteaching 
them their bloodthirstiness than he coud entertain of the Russian 
progeny. 

" The Court is at Fontainebleau ; & the residence there, which was 
to have been shortened, is now to continue to the 18th of November, 
the change of Air and Ass's milk agreeing so well with the Dauphin, 
that they begin to have hopes of him. This leaves Paris a Desart— but 
what is a Desart more or less to a man lying on a couch ? Indeed, I 
have company enough from morning to night, who have the charity to 
visit me. The Due de Nivernois is inexpressibly good, & has scarce 
missed a day. He says he called often at your door, & regrets not 
having seen you. Lady Mary Chabot, Madame Geoffrin, Madame de 
Juliac, the old President Haynault, and twenty others have been by 
my bedside ; in short, tho' I am only related to Mr. Pitt by the Gout, I 
find they have great respect for me. Here are but few English now, 
but there is one of the most amiable I ever knew, Lord Ossory, whom 
I see often. He has a great deal of the engaging manner of his cousin 
Tavistock, is modest, manly, very sensible, & well bred. Of your 
Islanders & your politics, thank God, I know nothing at all; & I 
am almost afraid of asking any questions, lest I betray my ignorance, — 
but is it true, as they say here, that Lord Temple is made Governor of 
the King's children ? that Lord Sandwich is turned Methodist ? & 
that Mr. Ellis has been taken up for writing treasonable papers ? I 
don't know how to believe these things, tho' I have seen many as 
strange. Perhaps they only tell me so to amuse my confinement. My 
Gracious Lady's pen will make any news acceptable to me. I hope it is 
not the contrary to her that I have retained my place in our box " [i.e., 
at the Opera]. " What use I shall make of it the Lord knows. If I 
knew of any remedy for the Gout, even in Japan, I shoud be tempted 
to go thither ; but how or when am I to get even thither ? My little 
feet coud not bear yet a Giant's slipper. When you see Lady Suffolk, 
mention me to her with the respect & gratitude I feel ; & whenever 
you write to Wentworth Castle, Madam, don't forget my strong attach- 
ments there. Any good account of Lady Strafford's health will always 
be most welcome to me. Not doubting your charity to a poor Invalid, 
I beg your Ladyship to send your letter to Mr. Conway's office, 
recommandee a Mons r Foley, Banquier. My letter, I perceive, is 
scarcely legible, my paper, ink, and pens are abominable, & my 

36 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

posture worse, but zeal, you see, Madam, can write, though leaning 
on its arm. 

" I am your Ladyship's, 
" though inconstant, yet unalterable, 

" Humble Sert., 

" Hor. Walpole." 

About this time Lady Yarmouth died in Hanover. Since 
the death of George the Second she had naturally sunk into 
obscurity ; but if nobody else in England mourned for her, 
Lady Mary Coke did, and Walpole's next letter, as in duty 
bound, commences with some characteristically expressed 
condolences on that event. Ten years later, when the 
friendship between him and Lady Mary did not, to use his 
own expression, " await the trial of a total separation," some 
equally cynical society philosopher might very well have 
repeated the worldly-wise moralisings of his first paragraph 
in a consolatory epistle to himself. 

" Paris, 

" November ijth, 1765. 

" Your heart, Lady Mary, is too feeling for a World in which 
Ingratitude and Death reign. I am heartily sorry for your loss of 
Lady Yarmouth ; she was a very valuable woman ; but you must not 
give way to all the friendship you are capable of. By some means or 
other, it will embitter your whole life ; & tho' it is very insipid to be 
indifferent, the vexations consequential of attachments are much too 
dearly bought by any satisfaction they produce. Perhaps, if Death was 
the only dissolvent of connections, one woud run the risk, because 
Esteem is mixed with grief ; the sensation has a kind of sweetness 
in it, but it is so seldom that friendship is mutual, that it rarely awaits 
the trial of a total separation ; and who woud be more concerned for 
another than that Person woud be for you ? If I was younger, I 
certainly shoud not preach this Doctrine to you, Madam, but I know 
your worth, I do not know that of many more, & I am sorry to see 
you so often miserable ; not one in a hundred deserves such sincerity 
as yours. 

" I am got again a little into the World, & during my illness 
received great marks of kindness & attention from several persons. 
But you must not believe, Madam, the ridiculous stories which have 
been propagated in England — I suppose to laugh at me. The circle 
of my acquaintance here is narrow, & lies amongst the most 
reasonable people I coud find, who treat me with great goodness & 

37 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

compassion, but who are too sensible, &, I hope, think me so, to 
commend my person or admire me, as has been reported. I speak 
their language too ill even to give way to my natural spirits, & tho' 
I trust I shall find them again at my return, I flatter myself that you 
will not perceive me become a coxcomb, nor in love with myself, at 
eight-and-forty, & after five months of Gout. I hope to be good- 
humoured to the last, but it will be a little hard if my Chearfulness is 
taken for Vanity. I dare not now, after what I have heard, joke on 
my passions, lest these should pass for pretensions, nor admire Madame 
de la Valliere's eyes, lest some kind body or other shoud talk of mine. 
You know me, Lady Mary, &, I hope, will acquit me of any follies of 
self-love. I have many others, & am willing to retain them, but on 
that head, indeed, I have not been guilty. Paris is still a Desart. The 
Dauphin, who received the last Sacraments two or three days ago, 
languishes on. However, he has mended so much, that they have 
appointed the Duke of Richmond's audience to-day, & he is accord- 
ingly gone to Fontainebleau. I question whether the Duchess will 
not be prevented for some time, as the Dauphin cannot last many days. 
Other French news I have none, & full as little of English. Nobody 
will ever tell me the Duke of Dorset's will, or whether the Duke of 
Cumberland made one ; but everybody says, ' I tell you no news 
because I conclude you have it from better hands.' I woud be content 
to know what has turned things round so that my Lady Bolingbroke 
is in disgrace at Bedford House, & my Lord in favour there. These 
may be old Stories in London, but woud be very new to me. You see, 
I am humble in my curiosity. You will soon see the Duke of Beaufort 
from hence, will find him improved in his person, good-natured, and 
civil. I am glad to find, Madam, that Lady Brown is a friend of yours ; 
She is uncommonly good-humoured & agreeably chearfuL Lord & 
Lady Fife find her a great resource. Tho' I have been here now above 
two months, I have seen few of the Beauties & none of the Princes of 
the Blood. Above five weeks I was confined, or at least an Invalid. The 
Dauphin's illness has locked up everybody at Fontainebleau. How- 
ever, as I think this will be my last expedition across the Sea, I 
endeavour & intend to see as much as I can. This is no very 
difficult task, as variety certainly does not compose the life of the 
French. They live by the Clock, by the almanack, and by custom. I 
think I coud with great truth write travels to Paris that woud totally 
contradict all ideas received of the French in England. I like many 
of the people, and with great reason ; am reconciled to several things 
that displeased me at first ; but there wants that singularity which, 
however unreasonable, makes every English Character a Novelty. Tho' 
the country and the people are new to me, I find it more difficult to 
say anything in my letters from hence than ever I did in England. 
When I find that the case, it is time, you will allow, to finish. Je ne 

38 ' 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

m'ennuis pas, mats je vons ennuierois. In short, as the French don't love 
laughing, I will reserve my spirits till we meet in our box at the Opera. 
I tumble down ten times in the day, & am sensible that I ought to 
grow old ; but I don't know how, I still flatter myself that I shall live 
to be foolish again. Not in public, where I intend to observe all the 
decorum and dignity of the gout ; but I doubt my friends will not find 
that my Wrinkles are very serious. Wrinkles, I assure you, there are, 
new ones, too ; and if there were not, I woud paint them sooner than 
lie under the calumny of being charming. This does not imply, Lady 
Mary, that I give up the least tittle of my claim to your, Heart ; on the 
contrary, I pretend that you (& you only) shoud see my stick (if I 
am forced to return with one) in the light of a crook, for, in spite of 
Madame de la Valliere, etc., I am still, & ever will be, 

" Y r Pastor fido, 

" Hor. Walpole." 

Walpole, now verging on fifty years of age, had never been 
in Paris since he went the grand tour when he was twenty- 
one ; but, as will be seen from his next letter to Lady Mary, 
when the first strangeness had worn off, he took very kindly 
both to the place and the people, and was in no hurry to 
return home : — 

" Paris, 

" Jan. 4th, 1766. 

" I, that am used to the rapidity of events in London, Madam, am 
astonished at the dearth of Paris. They have no occurrences but 
deaths, & marriages, & promotions, no Revolutions, no separations, 
no horseraces, nothing that constitutes History. In the first month 
after my arrival they talked of nothing but whether the Duchesse de 
Bouffiers had the smallpox a second time or not. Then they lived 
nine or ten weeks upon the Dauphin's death. They eked out the 
mourning and ceremonies as long as they coud ; & Madame Geoffrin 
owned fairly t'other night that now there was nothing to talk of — how 
much less than nothing is there to write of! Why, tho' even my Lady 
Berkeley is here, one has not a word to say. 

" My life is perfectly French, & I like it. I lie abed all the morning, 
breakfast, eat no dinner, visit after that no dinner, fix at nine for the 
evening, sup, drink coffee, & sit up till past two ; if I meet Madame 
de Mirepoix, drink tea, & stay till later. Oh ! it is charming ; &, 
what is more delightful, have no House of Commons, which, however, 
I hate less than usual for its late behaviour. It will be woful to return 
to English hours, and manners, and assemblies. Yet I am not 
ungrateful for the kind orders your Ladyship gave to Lady Brown to 

39 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

send me back : yet if I coud transport you and a few more, and Straw- 
berry, with all my cats & Dogs, to Paris & a mouthfull of verdure, 
I shoud not care if I never returned again. The Duchess of Richmond 
is not at all of my mind, but very impatient to be at home ; yet I do all 
I can to make her happy by carrying her to shops every day, & is 
there greater happiness ? We were at the Paris Marchand on new 
year's eve, crowded & yet frozen to death. Nobody liked it but I, 
who, having no terrors of gravity before my eyes, amuse myself as 
foolishly as I please all day long. It is pleasant to be in a country 
where, being connected with nobody, nor having relation to anything, 
one is at liberty to chase sense or nonsense without being torn to pieces. 
Nobody has any interest to pity or blame one. As often as I find that 
I am too young to bear being old I shall certainly whip over hither, 
vent my vagary, & return perfectly sober. 

" All this is upon the supposition that I am not frozen to death within 
this week. The weather is as cold as in Russia, and as here they sup 
with the doors open, I am forced to eat soupe scalding hot to prevent 
being converted into an Isicle. The theatres are shut up since the 
Dauphin's death — however, I don't hear that you divert yourselves better 
in England. Your Operas, I am told, are wofull, & Almack's not a 
jot livelier than it was last winter. In short, I am convinced that 
America will soon be the Source of all amusement ; they already write 
libels, & laugh at your Parliament. The moment a party is formed 
the Chiefs must divert their partizans. I wonder Lord Temple does 
not scramble over thither ; he woud have more hopes than are left him 
in England ; but I recollect that he is unluckily on the wrong side, or 
we shoud have a new Obelisk at Stowe, dedicated to some patriot at 
Boston. I pity the ministry when George Grenville has got a new 
continent opened to harangue upon. I have long thought that he 
shoud have lived in Lapland, where one day lasts for six months. 
Rousseau set out this morning for England. As he loves to contradict 
a whole Nation, I suppose he will write for the present Opposition. 
Pray tell me if he becomes the fashion. As he is to live at Fulham, I 
hope his first quarrel will be with his neighbour the Bishop of London, 
who is an excellent subject for his ridicule. 

" Adieu, dear Lady Mary. You see, I conceal none of my Levities, 
but I pretend to some merit, as, let me be as fickle as I will, in one 
point I never alter. 

" Y r most faithfull 

" humble sert., 

"H. W." 

Two months later, being still an idler in Paris, Walpole 
wrote again to Lady Mary, complaining that from dearth of 
material he was compelled to compose his letter of " dabs 

40 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

of paragraphs " ; but seeing that he mentions "Dr. Smith," 
who was none other than the afterwards celebrated author 
of " The Wealth of Nations," as accompanying her two 
nephews in the capacity of tutor, and as living in the same 
hotel as himself, it is much to be wondered at that he did 
not favour his correspondent with a sketch of the character, 
or at least of some of the eccentricities, of that remarkable 
man. It was left to somebody else to inform her, a year 
later, that the said Dr. Adam Smith was " the most absent- 
minded man that ever was " ; and she noted in her journal an 
amusing story about him which was related to her by Lady 
George Lennox. Mr. Darner, it appears, called one morning 
on the Scottish philosopher just as he was preparing his 
breakfast. As they talked the learned man took a piece of 
bread-and-butter in his hand, and, after rolling it round and 
round and round, popped it into his tea-pot and poured the 
boiling water upon it. Damer watched in quiet amusement 
without drawing attention to this peculiar proceeding, and 
presently he had his reward, for when Adam Smith poured 
himself out a cup of this queer decoction and tasted it, he 
quite innocently remarked to his visitor that it was the worst 
tea he had ever met with. 

" Paris, 

" March ?,rd, 1766. 

" I am thoroughly concerned, Dear Madam, at the account you give 
me of your health. If you woud attend to advice on that subject, I 
woud tell you that you harrass your mind & body. You have not been 
quite well a long while, and yet never take care of yourself for two days 
together. I woud recommend to you to love your friends less & to 
laugh at your Enemies. The goodness of your heart makes you too 
attentive to both. For the dethroned Empress" [he refers, perhaps, to 
the Princess Dowager of Wales], "who, you tell me, has been wanting in 
regard to you, she is surely below your notice. Rage, passion, & 
disappointment dictate all her actions, tho' she flatters herself that Art 
influences most of them. Take care of yourself, & be sure not to 
have the jaundice, which is the only thing in which you can ever 
resemble her. 

" You do me too much honour by far in thinking that publicly or 
privately I coud do any good. I did not leave England till I found I 

41 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

coud not. I pressed what you wished, but was not listened to. When 
I return, which will be the end of this month or the beginning of next, 
it will most certainly not be to meddle with politics, of which I washed 
my hands for ever when I came away. Your nephews, Madam, & 
Dr. Smith, are coming into the hotel I inhabit. You may imagine that 
their ages and mine do not mate as very proper companions ; but, as 
far as I can judge, you will have uncommon satisfaction in them. There 
is a natural modesty, good nature, & good breeding in them, which is 
particularly amiable in young men of their great rank. If their hearts 
are not like yours, I am much deceived. Lord & Lady Fife are gone 
to Holland, & fewer English than usual remain here. The King 
has been suddenly & unexpectedly at the Parliament to-day. I have 
not yet been out, nor know the particulars, but I shoud think it 
was on no favourable errand for them. They have lately made 
some high remonstrances, & three days ago he sent for their 
registers to Verseilles. These matters, as you may suppose, occupy 
them much, but to me, accustomed to livelier politics, they appear 
flea-bites. 

" I have not heard of Lord Strafford this age, but hope he received 
my last of January 23rd. This is not to extort a letter from him, 
but to put him in mind of a very sincere, humble servant of his 
& Lady Strafford. Of Lady Suffolk I know still less. May I beg 
your Ladyship to mention me to her ; if I knew a Syllable more 
than is in every gazette, I woud write to her ; & for my life, it is so 
uniform, it woud amuse nobody. I hope She is well, & that Marble 
Hill & Strawberry Hill will be as good neighbours this summer 
as ever. 

" You see, Madam, of what dabs of paragraphs I "am forced to com- 
pose my letter. It is a better reason for concluding than for continuing 
it ; but I coud not resist returning my thanks for yours & telling you, 
what I trust you are persuaded of, that your health is one of my first 
cares, and, I hope, will be the first of yours. 

"Y r most faithfull 

" & devoted humble Sert., 

" Hor. Walpole." 

It was about this time, or rather a little earlier, that 
Walpole dedicated to Lady Mary Coke his weird story of 
"The Castle of Otranto." When he first published it, 
in December, 1764, he passed it off as a translation, 
by " William Marshall, Gent.," from an Italian black- 
letter book of 1529, and almost everybody was imposed 
upon. But when he found it to be a success, and a second 

42 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

edition was called for, he admitted the authorship, and 
prefixed to it the following lines : — 

" To the Right Honourable Lady Mary Coke. 

" The gentle maid whose hapless tale 
These melancholy pages speak ; 
Say, gracious lady, shall she fail 

To draw the tear adown thy cheek ? 

" No, never was thy pitying breast 
Insensible to human woes : 
Tender, tho' firm, it melts distrest 
For weaknesses it never knows. 

" Oh ! guard the marvels I relate 
Of fell ambition scourged by fate, 

From reason's peevish blame ; 
Blest with thy smile, my dauntless sail 
I dare expand to Fancy's gale, 

For sure thy smiles are Fame." 

Lady Mary, as has been remarked already, had little 
taste or liking for fiction : her fame-conferring smiles were 
usually given to blue-books, or State papers, or dry-as-dust 
genealogies ; and, unfortunately, her candid opinion of 
" The Castle of Otranto " has not been preserved. In the 
autumn of 1767 Lady Mary and Horace Walpole happened 
to be once more in Paris at the same time ; but her stay was 
cut short by the sudden death of Charles Townshend, her 
sister Caroline's second husband. After her hurried journey 
to England she appears to have remembered to do some 
little service that Walpole had requested of her, and conse- 
quently called forth the following letter : — 

" Paris, 

" Sept. 2,0th, 1767. 
" I am excessively thankful, Dear Madam, for your most obliging 
compliance with my request when you was in so melancholy a situation. 
I coud only wish the letter had been dated a few days later, that I 
might be sure you have not suffered by your hurry, fatigue, & distress. 
I heartily grieve for all Mr. Townshend's family, especially y r Sister 
& his Mother, the last of whom I think the least likely to get over so 
terrible a blow, considering her state of health. I beg, when it is 

43 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

proper, you will say something for me to Lady Dalkeith, & a great 
deal to poor Lady Townshend, if you see her. I think it too early to 
write ; but I will wait on her as soon as I return, which will be in a 
fortnight at latest. I am very glad your Ladyship's passage was more 
favourable than Lady Mary Chabot's, who was 23 hours at Sea, & in 
the utmost danger. A Dutch vessel was lost very near them. 

" Poor Mons r de Guerchy expired on Thursday last. There is a 
House of as great calamity as the one you attend ! Nothing else has 
happened here since you left us, nor, indeed, I think, ever does, except 
deaths, marriages, & promotions. To my great joy, the Prince of 
Conti is gone to Lisle Adam with all his strolling Court, & I have not 
once seen him. I dined with Lady Rochford at the Duchesse 
d'Aguillon's on Wednesday last. The views are fine, excepting the 
want of verdure, & the garden, like all their gardens, seems to 
be in no keeping. On Friday we dined at Mr. Wood's at Meudon, 
where the prospect is much finer, but his House is a perfect ruin, like 
an old banqueting House at the End of an old-fashioned garden. 

" The Duke of York has had a violent fever at Monaco, but I think is 
reckoned out of danger. The Prince has paid him great attention ; so 
great that he has put off a journey to the Due de Choiseul's at 
Canteloupe. What can a Frenchman do more ? 

" Lord March & George Selwyn arrived this morning, & I expect 
them every minute. L d Algernon Percy is here too. 

"As I may set out sooner than I have mentioned, I do not know, 
Madam, whether you will trust me with any commissions. But my 
acquaintance here is so established, both with Friends and Shops, that 
I can easily get anything executed after my return to England. 

" Forgive me, dear Lady Mary, if I conclude this letter of scraps. I 
can tell you nothing from hence worth writing. Suppers are all the 
events, and, as you know, seldom lively. 

" Your most faithfull 

" & devoted humble Sert., 

" Hor. Walpole." 

As a matter of fact, this letter of scraps, which he thought 
scarce worth writing, contained one item of news which to 
Lady Mary was of momentous import, viz., the dangerous 
illness of the Duke of York at Monaco, for ever since 1758, 
when she was thirty-two and the Prince nineteen, she had 
carried on what, on her part at least, was a very serious 
flirtation with him. Edward, Duke of York, was the greatest 
fool (which is saying a good deal) of all the brothers of 
George the Third. He had, we ate told, a mean little form, 

44 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

a pale face, white eyelashes and eyebrows, and a certain 
tremulous motion of the eyes which made him look as silly 
as — he really was. For, in addition to being a heartless 
libertine, he was a stupid chatterer, whose giddiness as well 
as profligacy did more to bring royalty into discredit than 
even the calamitous mistakes of his brother who sat on the 
throne. Even a prince, it may be presumed, is capable of 
being flattered by the attentions and the undisguised admira- 
tion of a handsome woman ; but, however this may be, Prince 
Edward was quite ready to make love to Lady Mary Coke — 
in the only fashion which he ever knew anything about. But 
she was very careful of her reputation, and managed to keep 
him on a footing that gave no loophole for anything in the 
shape of the ordinary scandal. Then, it appears, the young 
scapegrace took to making fun of her behind her back, 
diverting his family and certain intimates of the Court with 
accounts of her strict propriety combined with amatory 
encouragement and of her evident desire to entangle him in 
the bonds of holy matrimony. He corresponded with her 
when he was abroad, and she carefully preserved all his 
letters ; but she seems to have read into them something 
which was not there, for the Princess Amelia and others 
to whom they were afterwards shown all agreed that they 
were merely such letters as any man might have written to 
any lady of his acquaintance. When, however, she heard 
the " terrible " news of his death, towards the end of 
September, 1767, her grief was extremely ostentatious. She 
shut herself up at Sudbrook alone for several days, trying to 
avoid everybody but the Princess Amelia. The Duchess of 
Norfolk grievously offended her by mentioning the " terrible " 
event in an indifferent manner ; and although her sister 
Caroline showed "great goodness and humanity" by 
sympathising with her bereavement, her other sisters as 
well as most of her acquaintances exhibited great heartless- 
ness, Lady Strafford by speaking of the "terrible" event as 
calmly and indifferently as the Duchess of Norfolk had done, 

45 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

and Lady Betty Mackenzie by not referring to it at all ! 
These sisters never afterwards occupied the same place in 
her affections as Caroline did ; and to the end of her days she 
cherished a degree of animosity against the Duchess of Bruns- 
wick, the Duchess of Hamilton, Lady Susan Stewart, and 
some others who were outspoken enough to pooh-pooh her 
pretensions of a particular relation to the late royal Duke. 
The first time she met Princess Amelia after receipt of the 
" terrible " news she burst into tears. The Princess affected to 
believe that she was distressed about some other matter, but 
when Lady Mary, not taking the hint, insisted on explaining 
that she was weeping for the Duke of York, her Royal Highness 
bluntly said, " If you did but know what a joke he always 
made of you, you would soon leave off crying for him." But 
she could not leave off crying for a long time. Her journal 
is full of entries on the subject. The fancied sounds of the 
firing of guns and the tolling of bells were in her ears day 
after day. Night after night she dreamt she was in West- 
minster Abbey at the funeral ; day after day she waited (in 
vain, of course) for his servants to bring her some message ; 
for it seemed incredible to her that the Duke could have died 
without having her in his mind at the last moment ; and 
after the funeral she went down into the vault in West- 
minster Abbey to weep and pray beside the coffin. Her 
friends evidently got sick of it, and kept out of her way, for 
she complains of being all alone in her house at Notting Hill 
for eight weeks, and during that time having seen only five 
people. Her sister Caroline believed, or affected to believe, 
that Lady Mary and the Duke, if not privately married, had 
at least been definitely betrothed ; but there is not a shred of 
evidence for any such belief. Nevertheless for some time 
afterwards she assumed something of the air of a royal widow, 
so that the Duchess of Brunswick joked about " our sister 
Mary " ; and her unfounded pretensions excited general 
laughter. But she persisted, for as late as ten or twelve 
years afterwards Walpole, whom by that time she had 

46 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

quarrelled with irreconcilably, tells one of his correspondents 
that the absurdities of " her Royal Highness," as he took 
to calling her, were still the theme of satirical animadversion. 

" Marie a la Coque " [i.e., Lady Mary] " has had an outrageous quarrel 
with Miss Pelham on politics, or rather at Miss Pelham, who did not 
reply. This occasioned Lady Mary's notes being mentioned, which she 
signs as Duchess of York ' Marye ' (the e passing for a flourish) if 
you do not go to law with her. On this Burke said to Miss P. : ' Upon 
my word, you will be a match for her if you sign ' Francess P.'" 

Unfortunately for Lady Mary's peace of mind, about two 
years after the death of the Duke of York the Duke of 
Gloucester married Lady Waldegrave, the illegitimate 
daughter of Sir Robert Walpole, and shortly after that the 
Duke of Cumberland married Mrs. Horton, neither of these 
ladies, of course, being so highly born as a daughter of the 
Duke of Argyll, and both of them, curiously enough, being 
widows. Then, says Lady Louisa Stuart, Lady Mary 
" foamed at the mouth," not so much because these royal 
dukes had married beneath them, as because another royal 
duke had neglected to marry her. This was intolerable; 
and so, shaking the dust of the English Court from her feet 
(for a time !), she betook herself to the more congenial 
atmosphere of the Courts of Germany. 

Before this happened, however, she had had a pleasant 
jaunt to the south of France, and had also had a 
curious proposal of marriage. The proposal came about as 
follows. On Sunday, May 15th, 1768, she dined at Lord 
Bessborough's, whose house she reports as magnificent and 
more crowded with fine things than any house she had ever 
seen. When Lord Bessborough had shown her all the rooms, 
and she had admired everything as it deserved, he turned to 
her and said simply, " I wish, Madam, you would consent to 
become the mistress of it." She took this for a jest, and 
laughingly replied that she was much obliged to him. But 
when Lord and Lady Strafford joined them, Lord 
Bessborough repeated his proposal and asked them what 

47 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

they thought of it, whereupon Lady Strafford said gravely 
that in her opinion, if her sister intended marrying, she could 
not do better. " I am afraid she does not think so," replied 
Lord Bessborough. " It appears to her too ridiculous to 
make an answer to it ; I am thirty years too old, I suppose." 
What answer Lady Mary then made she does not tell us, but 
she notes in her journal that it surprised her to find her sister 
taking the matter seriously, for, if she had any matrimonial 
intentions, she might certainly expect to do much better than 
Lord Bessborough. But she had no such intentions, being 
" too much attached to the memory of the person who is gone 
to think of any other engagement." Lord Bessborough, it 
may be remarked in passing, continued to cherish matri- 
monial intentions, although after this he seems to have been 
shy of offering himself to any lady very much his junior. A 
couple of years later, when the last of his daughters was about 
to be married, Princess Amelia suggested that he might like 
Lady Anne Howard for a second wife, in order not to be left 
quite alone, whereupon he promptly replied that there was 
too much difference in their ages. But he added, with a 
low bow, that, if her Royal Highness would accept of him for 
a husband, the ages would agree better. The Princess was 
so tickled with this quaint and unexpected proposal that she 
laughed till she could hardly stand. Then, recovering her 
composure, she replied pleasantly, " My good lord, if I were 
to become Lady Bessborough, I am afraid Lady Mary Coke " 
(who was then present) " would never cover her steps with 
carpets to receive me." " Pardon me, Madam," rejoined the 
old lord, taking it all quite seriously, "your Royal Highness 
would keep your rank, and I should agree that you keep your 
fortune, only desiring to be excused settling a jointure." 
Whereat, of course, there was more merriment, and the only 
satisfaction poor Lord Bessborough got was to hear his pro- 
posal related by the Princess as a capital joke when the rest 
of her company arrived. 

During the course of her journey through the south of 

48 



A GRANDE DAME—LADY MARY COKE 

France Lady Mary had written home to one of her sisters 
inquiring what had become of Mr. Walpole. Her still 
dutiful knight accordingly responded as follows : — 

" Arlington Street, 

"Dec. 14th, 1769. 
"Lady Betty Mackinsy " (sic) "tells me, Madam, that you have 
asked what is become of me, and why nobody mentions me. I cannot 
wonder why they do not, but I am extremely flattered with your 
Inquiring. When one is far from being a novelty, or when one creates 
no novelties, one is easily forgotten in such a World as London. I 
write no libels, want no place, and occasion no divorce. What right 
have I then to occupy a paragraph in a letter ? Quiet virtues or small 
faults are drowned in the noise & nonsense of the times. But this is 
more than was necessary. I hope it will procure me a considerable 
return of information about yourself, Lady Mary. I hear you have 
seen Voltaire & learned many particulars about Madame de Sevigne 
& the Grignans. I am ready to print all you shall impart. If any 
Draughtsmen grow in that part of the World, pray bring over a drawing 
of Grignan. You shoud visit Avignon & inquire after the good King 
Rend, the father of Margaret of Anjou, & his portrait & his 
paintings ; and you must read the Life of Petrarch in 3 quartos, & 
make a pilgrimage to the Sainte Baume " [a cave reputed to be the 
scene of Mary Magdalene's penance]. " These journies will amuse you 
more than Aix. Then you may learn all you can about the Parliament 
of Love & the Provencal Poets. Such pursuits are much more 
amusing than Intendants & Intendantes, & their awkward imitations 
of the manners of Paris. I do not attempt to tell you any news, as 
your sisters are such excellent correspondents. Lady Strafford looks 
particularly well. Lady Ailesbury, I think, quite recovered. Our box 
is rarely inhabited, the two last being but just arrived & your Sister 
ready to return. The Operas are commended and deserted. I desert 
but cannot commend them. Lady Betty Germain, I shoud think, 
wou'd be dead before you can receive this. Our Loo parties are 
receiving a great loss by the departure of Mello " [the Portuguese 
Minister], " who is suddenly recalled to fill a chief place in the Ministry, 
on the death of Monsieur d'Oyras's brother. Everybody regrets him, 
& he I believe will regret us. Madame du Chatelet is returned with 
her husband ; but take notice, Madam, I do not announce this to you as 
good news. Such a scanty letter as this is scarce worth sending so far, 
yet as it is embalmed in gratitude, I trust it will keep sweet. A month 
hence there will be news enough, but as there will probably be none 
that will do us honour, I am rather glad to write during the least 
interval of folly. One does not blush while one's letter is opened at a 

N.D. 49 E 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

foreign bureau. Poor Mrs. Harris, though out of danger, does not 
recover her strength. She spoke to me in the warmest terms t'other 
night of your Ladyship's goodness to her. I hope you are well guarded 
with James's powders. When I have so little to say for myself, you 
will not wonder, Madam, nobody said anything for me, but I could not 
help expressing my obligations & assuring you that 

" I am always 

" Lady Mary's 

" Most devoted 
" humble sert., 

" Hor. Walpole." 

Whether or not she answered Walpole's questions and 
gave him any account of the celebrated people and places 
she had seen does not appear ; but in a letter to one of her 
sisters she gives an account of her visit to Voltaire. He 
was then seventy-five years of age, and living quietly at his 
retreat at Ferney. He paid his compliment to her in 
English, and spoke of her father in terms of high approba- 
tion. Then he insisted on showing her his garden, although 
she protested against this, because, as she declares, he was 
attired only " in a flowered silk waistcoat and nightgown, a 
dark periwig without powder, slippers, and a cap in his hand." 
Having duly inspected the garden, she came in to breakfast 
with him, and, after staying altogether an hour and a half, 
came away very well satisfied with her reception. 

It was in the year following this that she determined to 
visit the Empress-Queen, Maria Theresa, at Vienna, and 
Walpole, who had been ill and unable to see her for some 
little time previously, wrote her the following satirical 
farewell : — 

" Monday Evening, Sept. 24th, 1770. 

" It was a thorough mortification, dear Lady Mary, not to see your 
Ladyship yesterday when you was so very good to call; & it was no 
small one not to be able to answer your note this morning. My relapse 
I believe was owing to the very sudden change of Weather. However 
it has humbled me so much that I shall readily obey your commands 
& be much more careful of not catching cold again. If it is possible 
I shall remove to London before you set out ; if it is not, I wish you 
health, happiness, & amusement — &, may I say, a surfeit of travelling. 

50 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

I am glad you cannot go & visit the Ottoman Emperor & I have 
too good an opinion of you to think you will visit the Northern 
Fury. If after this journey you will not stay at home with us, I protest 
I will have a painted oil-cloth hung at your Door, with an account of your 
having been shown to the Emperor of Germany & the Lord knows 
how many other Potentates. Wellj! Madam, make haste back ; you see 
how fast I grow old ; I shall not be a very creditable Lover long, nor able 
to drag a chain that is heavier than that of your watch. Yet while a 
shadow of me lasts I will glide after you with friendly wishes, & put 
you in mind of the Attachment of 

" Y r most faithfull Slave, 

" Hor. Walpole." 

This, the first of her visits to Vienna, was highly successful. 
The Emperor Joseph was courteous to her, and his mother, 
Maria Theresa, made much of her while she was there, and 
before she left granted her a private audience, and presented 
her with a fine medallion set with jewels. Count Seilern, 
who had known her when he was ambassador in England, 
Prince Kaunitz, the Prime Minister, the Thuns, the Lichten- 
steins, and the Esterhazys, all entertained her magnificently, 
so that on her return she had a great deal that was both 
interesting and instructive to report. Unfortunately she did 
it in so pompous a manner, and paraded so ostentatiously 
her intimacy with these illustrious personages, that people 
were forced to laugh at an exhibition such as might have 
been expected of the daughter of a beknighted tallow- 
chandler, but was unaccountable in a daughter of the great 
Duke of Argyll. Horace Walpole seems to have anticipated 
something of this kind, for while she was there he addressed 
to her an apology for his dilatoriness as a correspondent in 
the following humorous strain : — 

" Arlington Street, 

"Jan. 27th, 1 77 1. 

" I am extremely flattered, dear Lady Mary, by your sisters telling me 
that you complain of my silence — alas ! I thought, surrounded by 
Emperors and Empresses, you could not think of or care for the letters 
of such little mortals as I. I imagined that I must write to you with all 
the formality of the Aulic Chamber. I had begun an Epistle & put 
myself into one of Count Seilern's most exalted attitudes, but my words 

51 E 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

came so slow that I should not have finished before I hope you will 
return. By your kind reproof I trust you will allow me to descend from 
my Austrian buskins, & write in my usual style. I am [not], nor ever 
can be, altered towards your Ladyship ; but truth is, I feared your 
being become at least an Archduchess, & did not know, which would 
be a thousand pities, but your fair nose might have risen half an Inch, 
and your lips, which could never mend, have dropped and pouted with 
prodigious dignity at being addressed with a familiarity unknown to the 
House of Hapsburg. I am transported with finding you still the same, 
& cou'd now almost trust you with the baneful influence of the 
Czarina. However, pray never think of making her a visit too. You 
have travelled enough, & ought to have the Magi come to see you, 
instead of wandering yourself after every Star. I do not pretend, 
Madam, to tell you news, for Lady Strafford & Lady Greenwich leave 
none untold. One article rejoices me greatly, the peace with Spain. I 
do not wish to conquer the world every ten years ! Events happen here 
so daily that we do not want battles & sieges for conversation ; & 
yet I think Politics are likely to grow a little drowsy. The deaths of 
Mr. Grenville & the Duke of Bedford have left Lord North in full 
Security. L d Temple takes no more part, and they say is even 
quarrelled with L d Chatham. Wilkes & Parson Home have a civil 
War between themselves, & nobody insists upon one's lighting up 
candles for either. Loo begins to yield to Quinze — Oh ! I had forgotten : 
there are desperate Wars between the Opera in the Haymarket & that 
at Mrs. Cornely's. There was a negociation yesterday for a union, but 
I do not know what answer the definitive Courier has brought. All I 
know is that Guadagni is much more haughty than the King of Castille 
Arragon, Leon, Granada, etc. In the meantime King Hobart is starving ; 
& if the junction takes place his children must starve, for he must pay 
the expenses of both Theatres. The Ladies' Club — Oh ! but you are one 
of the profane & must not be acquainted with our mysteries, yet you 
must respect them, for Mons r de Belgioioso " [Count Seilern's successor 
as imperial ambassador] " is one of our new members. He is a sensible 
good sort of man, & has not half the paste board about him that 
Seilern had. You will like Mons r de Guisnes too, who is very civil & 
modest, and has none of the agreeable peevishness of his Predecessor, 
nor the charming indifference of his Predecessoress. What do you say 
at Vienna to Mons r de Choiseul's fall, & when will your neighbour 
Mustapha 3rd be sent in chains to Petersburg ? Is the Dauphiness 
breeding, or are you angry she is not ? Plays, at least scenes, thrive ex- 
ceedingly. There is a farce at Covent Garden called Mother Shipton 
that has a million of pretty Landscapes & Temples of Ruby & 
Emerald. Garrick has revived Dryden's King Arthur with some good 
Scenery ; unluckily, for a Heathen Temple he has produced a Gothic 
Cathedral, in which the Devil happens to be the principal performer ; 

52 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

and then Purcell's venerable music is squalled in imitation of modern 
singing, till one's ears don't know it by sight. He has got a Tragedy too, 
translated from Voltaire's Tancrede by Madame Celesia, Mallet's 
daughter, which takes, tho' very middling ; and a sentimental comedy 
called The West Indian by Mr. Cumberland, that is quite ravishing; 
at least so they say, but I have not had time yet to go and be ravished. 
I do not know that we have a single new book, except one or two 
political pamphlets, that nobody reads but the Common Council that 
cannot read. Lord Huntington" [late Groom of the Stole] "is going 
abroad, not, like your Ladyship, to see Kings and Queens, but because he 
has fewer opportunities of seeing them than he had. Lord Shelburne is 
going too, on the loss of his wife, & Lord Grantham to Spain. I have 
not heard who is to succeed the last as Vice- Chamberlain. The worst 
and the best news I can tell you is, that you & I, Madam, have been 
very near losing our Princess, & that she is perfectly well again. 
I am to play there to-morrow, but our Loo is reduced to half-crowns. 
You have heard, I suppose, that on account of her Deafness, she goes no 
more to Court, & is to have no more Drawing rooms. This sketch of 
everything will, I hope, atone a little for my past omissions, and yet 
why should I expect it ? You are a wanderer, Lady Mary, like Cain, 
& seem not to care for your own Country. You would have liked it 
better, I believe, during the Heptarchy, when we had more Kings and 
Queens than there are in a pack of cards. If you should ever write 
your Travels, & like Baron Polnitz give a full account of all the 
gracious Sovereigns upon Earth, I flatter myself you will honour the 
Strawberry Press with them. I promise you they shall be printed on 
the best Imperial paper. It is employed at present on the last volume 
of my Anecdotes of Painting, which do not deserve better than quires 
of foolscap. May I trouble your Ladyship with my compliments to Lord 
Stormont ? I am just going to Lady Ailesbury, & as I conclude I shall 
meet Lady Strafford there, I must finish my letter that I may trouble 
her to send it — but the Length indeed is all I ought to make excuses for. 
" I am, Madam, 

" Your Ladyship's 

" abandoned but ever 

" faithfull & devoted Knight, 
" Horace Walpole." 

Lady Mary considered the foregoing a " delightful " letter ; 
but she remarks in her journal that she is sorry Mr. Walpole 
thinks her to be an admirer of kings and queens " independent 
of their merit," for she can assure him (and everybody else) 
that great stations never dazzle her or blind her judgment, 
and the sole reason why she is more pleased to see eminent 

53 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

virtues in people of supreme rank than in those of lower 
degree is that the influence of those in high places is so much 
more extensive. But Walpole knew better ; and he never 
lost an opportunity of chaffing her about her infatuation. 
When she invited him to spend a day with her at her Notting 
Hill villa in June of the same year, she was already talking 
of a second visit to Vienna ; and his acceptance of the 
invitation was framed accordingly. 

" Strawberry Hill, 

'■'■June gth, 1771. 
" You cannot imagine, Dear Madam, how much I am nattered with 
receiving your orders to pass a whole day with you, tho' I have not, 
that I know of, a drop of Austrian blood in my veins. It is true 
Charlemagne was my Grandfather, by a Courtenay that married some- 
body from whom I am descended, but I hope you had not that match in 
your eye, but graciously invited me without considering that I am but a 
thousand years off from being a sort of Prince. I shall obey your 
Commands with more submission & Satisfaction than if your 
Ladyship's name was Teresa as well as Mary. You are Goddess 
enough for me, & I shall never pilgrimize to Vienna to see a 
greater Lady. I wish you was as much content with your own 
Dignity. A wise Lady should make such a progress but once ; no 
more than the Wise men. I doubt even whether they would have 
retained that character, if they had danced after the same star year 
after year. It is the Emperor's turn to come after your Ladyship. 
Can we expect him, if you carry to him what is most worth seeing 
in England ? or will he come if you are to return to Vienna ? Nay, he 
does not deserve your visit, when he has a vacant throne to offer 
you, & yet lets you slip out of his hands. There is not an instance 
in Romance of such neglect. Do you think any consideration upon 
earth would have determined Berenice to return to Rome after Titus 
had been so weak & ill bred as to suffer her to depart ? Shall the 
Duke of Argyll's daughter run up & down Europe like the Wandering 
Jew? Chuse your Kingdom & reign there, & tho' I shall certainly 
die of it, I wish you settled and crowned once for all. Your glory is still 
dearer to me than Loo at Notting Hill, & even than all my rash 
hopes. For your sake I would sacrifice my darling view of tending a 
few sheep with you on our two hills, but I cannot bear to see you 
return so often without a Diadem. ' Or Caesar or nothing,' said Borgia : 
• Be Caesar's wife or mine,' say I. Caesar has not done his Part. My 
heart is still at your Service, but I am off if you offer it to Caesar once 
more. Nay I will not be pacified, tho' you shou'd pretend the visit is 

54 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

only to his Mother. If you think of Vienna again, I marry Madame du 
Deffand, & will no longer be 

" Your Ladyship's 

" Constant and 

" Eternal Adorer, 
" Hor. Walpole." 

Lady Mary described this amusing epistle as the most 
" rediculous " letter she had ever read ; but the notion that 
she might captivate and marry the Emperor Joseph was by 
no means so " rediculous " to her mind as it was to that of 
the humorous writer. She sent the letter to her brother-in- 
law, Lord Strafford, ostensibly because she thought it would 
amuse him, but really, perhaps, because she was half disposed 
to think the suggestion about the Emperor offering her a 
vacant throne might have an element of prophecy in it. 
Walpole's banter often contained very sound advice, and she 
would have done better if she had taken to heart that other 
part of the letter in which he tried to dissuade her from 
dancing after the same star again and again ; and he seems 
to have repeated this advice on the occasion of another 
visit to Notting Hill, for she notes in her journal that one 
day an unexpected coach stopped at her door, out of which 
came Mr. Walpole and his dog. He had evidently come on 
purpose to scold her for intending to return to Vienna. 
When that was over, however, as she slily observes, he asked 
her more questions about the Empress, etc., than anybody 
else had ever done ; and she adds in conclusion, " Has he 
any reason to complain of my going to Vienna when he is 
going to Paris ? — sets out the beginning of next month, and 
stays six weeks." Anyway, her resolution was fixed; and 
on September 4th she set out on her second visit to the 
Court of the Empress-Queen. Before she left England, 
however, she received from Walpole, who was then in Paris, 
a lively account of an interesting scientific experiment, of 
which presumably he had been an eye-witness. According 
to the Annual Register for 1771, this experiment was made, 
in the presence of a considerable number of persons of both 

55 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

sexes, in the laboratory of Monsieur Rouelle, a physician and 
member of the Royal Academy of France. This was some 
four or five years before Lavoisier proved the diamond to 
consist of pure carbon by burning it in oxygen and collecting 
the carbon dioxide gas which it formed. Walpole's account 
of the matter, which greatly entertained her, though she 
very ineptly describes it by her favourite phrase of " most 

rediculous," is as follows : — 

" Paris, 

" Aug. 22nd, 1771. 
" I never trouble your Ladyship with common news. The little 
events of the World are below the regard of one who steps from 
Throne to Throne, & converses only with demigods & demi- 
goddesses. Parliaments are broken here every day about our ears, 
but their splinters are not of consequence enough to send you. I 
waited for something worthy of being entered in your Imperial 
Archives — little thinking that I should be happy enough to be the 
First to inform you, at least to ascertain you, of the most Extra- 
ordinary discovery that ever was made, & far more important than 
the forty dozen of Islands which Dr. Solander has picked up the 
Lord knows where, as he went to catch new sorts of fleas & 
crickets; & which said Islands, if well husbanded, may produce 
forty more Wars. The Discovery I mean will occasion great desolation 
too. It will produce a violent change in the Empire of Parnassus, it 
will be very prejudicial to the eyes, & considerably reduce the value of 
what Cibber calls the Paraphernalia of a Woman of_Quality. It is 
difficult not to moralise on so trist an event 1 Can we wonder at 
that fleeting condition of Human life when the brightest & most 
durable of essences is proved to be but a vapour ? No, Madam, I 
do not mean Angels. They have indeed been in some danger ; but 
have been saved, at least for some time, by Mad. du Bany, & the 
late Edicts that wink at the return of the Jesuits. The radiances in 
question have undergone a more fiery trial, & their nothingness is 
condemned without reprieve. Yes, Madam, Diamonds are a bubble, 
and Adamant itself has lost its obduracy. I am sorry to say that it 
would be a greater compliment now to tell a beauty that she had ruby 
eyes, than to compare them to a Diamond, & if your Ladyship's 
heart were no harder than Adamant, I should be sure of finding it 
no longer irresistible. As this memorable process took its rise at 
Vienna, your Ladyship may perhaps have heard something of it. 
Public experiences have now been made here ; & the day before 
yesterday, the Ordeal Trial was executed. A Diamond was put into 
a Crucible over a moderate fire, & in an hour was absolutely 

56 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

annihilated. No ashes were left, not enough to enclose in a fancy 
ring. An Emerald mounted the Scaffold next — its Verdure suffered, 
but not its Essence. The third was a Ruby, who triumphed over 
the flames, & came forth from the furnace as unhurt as Shadrac, 
Meshac, & Abednego — to the immortal disgrace of the Diamond : a 
Crystal behaved with as much Heroism as the Ruby, & not a hair of 
its head was singed. Nobody can tell how far this Revolution will 
go. For my part as I foresee that no woman of Quality will deign to 
wear any more Diamonds, & that next to Rubies, cristal will be the 
principal ornament in a Lady's Dress, I am buying up all the old Lustres 
I can meet with. I have already got a piece of two thousand-weight, 
& that I hope to sell for fifty thousand pounds to the first Nabob's 
daughter that is married, for a pair of Earrings; & I have another 
still larger, that I am taking to pieces, & intend to have set in a 
Stomacher, large enough for the most prominent Slope of the present 
Age. Mad. du Barry they say has already given Pitt's Diamond to her 
Chambermaid ; & if Lord Pigot is wise, he will change his at Bette's 
glass shop for a dozen strong beer glasses. As to Lord Clive & the 
Lady of Loretto, I do not feel much pity for them ; they are rich enough 
to stand this loss. The reflections one might make on this disaster are 
infinite, but I will take up no more of your Ladyship's time — nor do I 
condole with you, Madam, your Philosophy is incapable of being 
shaken by so sublunary a consideration as a decrease in the value of 
your large ring. It has a secret and inestimable merit, which is out of 
the power of a crucible to assail ; & you & it will remain or become 
Stars, when the fashion of this World passeth away. 

" I am, Madam, 

" Y r Ladyship's 

" most faithfull 

" humble Sert., 
" Hor. Walpole." 

Before setting out for Vienna Lady Mary, of course, took 
formal leave of her own sovereign at one of the drawing- 
rooms, when the Queen of England sent her compliments to 
the Empress of Germany, and asked Lady Mary if the King 
had not had an amiable quarrel with her about her going 
abroad. Her Ladyship duly noted these " mighty fine " 
speeches in her journal, but at the same time expressed her 
conviction that nobody at St. James's had been worse treated 
than she had been, — how or when it would probably have 
puzzled anybody else to point out. Three months later, 

57 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

when Walpole, being back in London, made inquiries after 
her of her sister Anne, he was told that he ought to write to 
Vienna, which he accordingly did, in the following strain : — 

" Arlington Street, 

" Dec. nth, 1771. 
" Lady Strafford tells me that I ought to write to your Ladyship. I obey, 
though I am not quite clear that she is in the right. Can you care for 
hearing from anybody in England, Madam, when you are indifferent 
whether you see them or not ? I cou'd say a great deal upon this 
subject, but I will not — only do not be surprised that I have got a new 
Passion. Ancient Palladins, I know, were bound to maintain constancy, 
tho' they travelled all over the World ; but no Act of the Parliament of 
Love was ever passed enjoining fidelity to Knights, when it was their 
Ladies that took to travelling. Indeed, if y r Ladyship had made a vow 
to wander till you had obliged every fair Dame in Europe to confess 
how much handsomer I am than their lovers, something might be said, 
but as you have sent no conquered Amazon to kiss my hand and 
acknowledge my claim, I am not bound to believe that you are travel- 
ling to assert my Glory; & therefore regarding you as a truant, I 
have thrown my handkerchief to another Lady, & declare by these 
presents that I renounce your Ladyship's allegiance. It will be in vain 
to mount your milk-white palfrey & amble home directly ; the die is 
cast — & Heaven knows whether Matrimony itself may not ensue. I 
shall always retain a sincere friendship for you, but really there was no 
end of having one's heart jolted about from one country to another, & 
of having it lugged once a year to Vienna. A heart torn to pieces, like 
flags torn in battle, is very becoming, but a heart black and blue is 
horrible ; and I can tell you, y r Ladyship does not look the better for 
it, tho' you have endeavoured to conceal its bruises by embroidering it 
all over with spread eagles. But here I drop the subject : you are now 
your own Mistress, Madam, and may seek what adventures you please, 
undisturbed by me. I shall be sorry to see you return even with two 
black eyes, but shall bear it with all the Philosophy of friendship : & 
as friends always do, shall content myself with telling you it was your 
own fault, & with recommending the best eye-water I know. Can a 
friend go further, except in whispering to everybody, that if you wou'd 
have taken my advice, you wou'd have stayed at home. 

" The best news I can send you, Madam, is that I never saw Lady 
Strafford look in better health. The Town is a Desart : grass grows in 
the pit at the Opera. The Princess of Brunswick is coming : the 
Princess Dowager is going. There is the Devil to pay I don't know 
where ; & the Duke of Chandos is dead, to the great oy of that noble 
family. All the fine ladies are in love with Prince Poniatowski " 

58 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

[brother of the King of Poland] " and some of them win his money at 
Loo — that they may have something to keep for (his sake. England is 
in profound peace. Ireland is a hubbub. December, which is indeed 
no news to you, is warmer than June, & which is still news, 
M I am your Ladyship's 

" most devoted 

" (tho' inconstant) 
" humble Sert., 

" Hor. Walpole." 

About this time Lady Mary, for what reason does not 
appear, became somewhat testy with her cavalier ; and in 
the last of his letters to her (or, at any rate, the latest in 
date that has been preserved amongst Mr. Drummond- 
Moray's papers) he was forced to defend himself against 
charges of neglect, of an altered behaviour, and of having 
sent an uncivil message to her through a third person : — 

"Arlington Street, 

"Jan. 2gth, 1772. 
" Your reproofs, my dear Madam, are so kindly tempered that, tho' 
undeserved, I cannot be quite sorry to have received them. I thank 
you much for giving me an opportunity of defending myself, & you 
must allow me to distinguish between the two accusations, as they 
affect me very differently. What you think you have observed yourself 
would hurt me very seriously, if well founded. What has passed through 
another, Madam, you ought only to have smiled at, if you will allow me 
to say so. Your Ladyship says that you have observed an alteration in 
my behaviour to you. I should be very culpable indeed if there was 
any. It woud be most ungrateful after all your goodness to me, & 
it woud be a capital contradiction to all I feel. I am not of an age to 
plead giddiness and thoughtlessness, and yet most assuredly Inattention 
can be all my crime, because there is certainly no change in my Regard 
& Esteem. I respect your Virtues, Madam, & the thousand good 
qualities I know of you, & as you have lost none of them, I must 
have lost my senses if I did not honour them as much as ever, which 
I swear to you I do. I beg your pardon if any negligence can be 
imputed to me, & I refer you to my future behaviour for my Sincerity. 
For what your Ladyship calls a message in ridicule, & which was 
nothing but a very inoffensive joke, if no more was delivered than I 
uttered, & even in which you shoud consider how much the alteration 
but of an accent may affect the substance, all I can remember is, that 
meeting Lady G[reenwich] at Lady Blandford's, I said something, I 
protest I do not know what, of supposing your Ladyship's next jaunt 

59 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

wou'd be to China. I shoud have said it to yourself without fear of 
displeasing you — & to say the truth if this was aggravated into a 
serious message, I must conclude it was done with a good intention, 
as your friends cannot but grieve at your frequent & long Eclipses, 
& may like to cover what they wish to say to you under another 
person's name. Nobody can be absurd enough to suppose your Lady- 
ship has any interested view in visiting the Empress-Queen, or in 
courting any other person. Can the Duke of Argyle's daughter desire 
to be higher than she is ? & woud not paying court be lowering her ? 
Woud it not infer that she does not think herself great enough ? Great 
Birth is your own. Favour must be conferred & can only come from 
a Superior, & they who confer favours always think so highly of 
themselves that they seem to undervalue those whom they fancy they 
honour. In short, Madam, not to be too serious, nor to enter into the 
Empress's merits, which shall be as great as you please, let me beg you 
to return to your own Empire ; come and reign over those hearts you 
dispose of, & do not leave them because somebody or other has 
offended you. Contempt & Indifference are our best Weapons or 
shield. Life is not long enough to attend to resentments. It is easy 
to be happy, if one does not care much about the World, but takes 
it as it comes. I have practised what I preach, & am sure of my 
nostrum's success. If one does not love often, one cannot hate often : 
now both Love and Hatred are troublesome Inmates. I will give 
y r Ladyship more lectures upon my Philosophy when you return ; but 
I shall not set them down in writing, for the profane are not to be 
instructed. You shall hear me with patience— nay & if you do not, 
I will not mind it, but preach on. I had rather make you angry with 
reason, than be again accused of neglect. I will make use of all the 
impertinent privileges of a Friend, which I confess are shocking, rather 
than let you suspect me of lukewarmness — but never a verbal message 
more ! I condole with you, Madam, on the death of the Princess of 
Hesse. Princess Amelia, tho' expecting it, was much shocked. I tell 
you no news, for I know Lady Strafford sends you bushels, wet and 
dry. If she does not tell you that the Pantheon is more beautiful than 
the Temple of the Sun, read no more of her letters. I acknowledge 
with the utmost gratitude, dear Lady Mary, the repetition of y r Friend- 
ship & am firmly persuaded that mine will never alter on the condition 
you mark for its duration, & if [it] does, the fault must be in 

" Y r Ladyship's 

" Most faithfull 

" humble Sert., 

" Hor. Walpole." 

The fair lady, however, was not to be pacified ; and she 
notes in her journal, " I shall certainly answer Mr. Walpole's 

60 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

letter, but he has surprised me so much, it is not so easy for 
me to write to him as it once was." Meanwhile her second 
visit to Vienna was not prospering as the former one had 
done. She made herself too much at home, and was 
imprudent enough to take sides in some cabal amongst 
the Austrian courtiers, whereat, of course, the Empress 
frowned, and, as everybody else then frowned likewise, Lady 
Mary left Vienna at the conclusion of this second visit in 
high dudgeon. She believed, or affected to believe, that 
Maria Theresa feared she would captivate and marry the 
Emperor Joseph, who was then a widower for the second 
time ; and for the remainder of her life she really did believe 
that the great Empress-Queen had become her implacable 
enemy and was continually plotting with all the Powers of 
Europe against her ! Nevertheless, in the summer of 1773, 
she was indiscreet enough to make another visit to Vienna, 
when, to her surprise and intense mortification, Maria Theresa 
declined to receive so quarrelsome a lady. Horace Walpole, 
writing to her brother-in-law, Lord Strafford, in September of 
that year, gives some colour to the supposition that she really 
did mean setting her cap at the Emperor Joseph by remark- 
ing that he fears she is in pursuit of a Dulcinea that she will 
never meet, but that, when the ardour of peregrination is 
abated, she will probably settle down to some more rational 
pursuit, " and, like a print I have seen of the blessed martyr 
Charles the First, abandon the hunt of a corruptible for that 
of an incorruptible crown." In a subsequent letter to the same 
correspondent, he speaks about some of Lady Mary's morti- 
fications that he has heard of; and it may be that he thought 
this a good opportunity to make a more direct and outspoken 
effort to laugh her out of her " phrenzy for royalty." At any 
rate, it must have been about this time that he penned the 
following, — the only letter to her, and that undated, which 
appears in Cunningham's edition of his correspondence : — 

" Your Ladyship's illustrious exploits are the constant theme of my 
meditations. Your expeditions are so rapid, and to such distant regions, 

61 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

that I cannot help thinking you are possessed of the Giant's boots that 
stepped seven leagues at a stride, as we are assured by that accurate 
historian, Mother Goose. You are, I know, Madam, an excellent walker, 
yet methinks seven leagues at once are a prodigious straddle for a 
lady. But whatever is your manner of travelling, few heroines, ancient 
or modern can be compared to you for length of journeys. Thalestris, 
Queen of the Amazons, and M. M. or N. N. Queen of Sheba, went each 
of them the Lord knows how far to meet Alexander the Great and 
Solomon the Wise; the one to beg the favour of having a daughter (I 
suppose), and heiress by him ; and the other, says scandal, to grant a 
like favour to the Hebrew monarch. Your Ladyship, who has more 
real Amazonian principles, never makes visits but to Emperors, Queens, 
and Princesses, and your country is enriched with the maxims of 
wisdom and virtue which you collect in your travels. For such great 
ends did Herodotus, Pythagoras, and other sages, make voyages to 
Egypt, and every distant kingdom ; and it is amazing how much their 
own countries were benefited by what those philosophers learned in 
their perigrinations. Were it not that your Ladyship is actuated by 
such public spirit, I should put you in mind, Madam, of an old story, 
that I might save you a great deal of fatigue and danger — and now I 
think of it, as I have nothing better to fill my letter with, I will relate 
it to you. 

" Pyrrhus, the martial and magnanimous King of Epirus (as my Lord 
Lyttelton would call him), being, as I have heard or seen goodman 
Plutarch say, intent on his preparations for invading Italy, Cineas, one 
of the grooms of his bedchamber, took the liberty of asking his Majesty 
what benefit he expected to reap if he should be successful in conquering 
the Romans ? ' Jesus ! ' said the King, peevishly ; ' why the question 
answers itself. When we have overcome the Romansr no province, no 
town, whether Greek or barbarian, will be able to resist us : we shall at 
once be masters of all Italy.' Cineas after a short pause, replied— ' And 
having subdued Italy, what shall we do next ? ' ' Do next ? ' answered 
Pyrrhus, ' why seize Sicily.' ' Very likely,' quoth Cineas, ' but will that 
put an end to the war ? ' ' The Gods forbid ! ' cried his Majesty, 
'when Sicily is reduced, Libya and Carthage will be within our reach.' 
And then without giving Cineas time to put in a word, the heroic Prince 
ran over Africa, Greece, Asia, Persia, and every other Country he had 
ever heard of upon the face of God's earth, not one of which he intended 
should escape his victorious sword. At last, when he was at the end of 
his geography, and a little out of breath, Cineas watched his opportunity, 
and said quietly, ' Well Sire, when we have conquered all the World, 
what are we to do then ? ' — ' Why then,' said his Majesty, extremely 
satisfied with his own prowess, ' we will live at our ease ; we will spend 
whole days in banqueting, and will think of nothing but our pleasures.' 

" Now, Madam, for the application. Had I had the honour a few 

62 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

years ago of being your confidential Abigail, when you meditated 
a visit to Princess Esterhazy, I should have ventured to ask your 
Ladyship of what advantage her acquaintance would be to you ? 
Probably you would have told me that she would introduce you to 
several Electresses and Margravines, whose Courts you would visit. 
That, having conquered all their hearts, as I am persuaded you would, 
your next jaunt should be to Hesse ; from whence it would be but a 
trip to Aix, where Madame de Rochouart lives. Soaring from thence 
you would repair to the Imperial Court at Vienna, where resides the 
most august, most virtuous, and most plump of Empresses and Queens 
— no, I mistake — I should only have said of Empresses ; for her Majesty 
of Denmark, God bless her ! is reported to be full as virtuous, and three 
stone heavier. Shall you not call at Copenhagen, Madam ? If you do, 
you are next door to the Czarina, who is the quintessence of friendship, 
as the Princess Daskioff says, whom, next to the late Czar, her 
Muscovite Majesty loves above all the world. Asia, I suppose, would 
not enter into your Ladyship's system of conquest ; for though it 
contains a sight of Queens and Sultanas, the poor ladies are locked up 
in abominable places, into which I am sure your Ladyship's amity 
would never carry you. I think they call them seraglios. Africa has 
nothing but Empresses stark naked, and of complexions directly the 
reverse of your alabaster. They do not reign in their own right ; and 
what is worse, the Emperors of those barbarous regions wear no more 
robes than the sovereigns of their hearts. And what are Princes and 
Princesses without velvet and ermine ? As I am not a jot better 
geographer than King Pyrrhus, I can at present recollect but one Lady 
more who reigns alone, and that is her Majesty of Otaheite, lately 
discovered by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander ; and for whom your Lady- 
ship's compassionate breast must feel the tenderest emotions, she 
having been cruelly deprived of her faithful Minister and lover Tobin, 
since dead at Batavia. 

" Well, Madam, after you should have given me the plan of your 
intended expeditions, and not left a Queen Regent on the face of the 
Globe unvisited, I would ask what we were to do next ? ' Why, then 
dear Abigail,' you would have said, ' we will retire to Notting Hill, we 
will plant shrubs all the morning, read Anderson's Royal Genealogies 
all the evening ; and once or twice a week I will go to Gunnersbury 
and drink a bottle with Princess Amelia.' Alas, dear Lady ! and cannot 
you do all that without skuttling from one end of the World to the 
other ? This was the upshot of all Cineas's inquisitiveness : and this is 
the pith of this tedious letter from, Madam, your Ladyship's most 
faithful Aulic Counsellor and humble admirer." 

It was not to be expected — probably the writer himself 
never expected — that humorous effusions such as this would 

63 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

cure Lady Mary of her passion for foreign royalties. If they 
had any effect at all, it was in another direction altogether ; 
and they may perhaps have accelerated the cooling: of a 
friendship which had been a warm one on both sides for 
seventeen or eighteen years. We now find notes in her 
journal to the effect that Mr. Walpole was "exceedingly 
out of humour " when she happened to meet him at Lord 
Hertford's, that he never once wrote to thank her for having 
called so often to inquire after him during his illness, that 
when he called at her house to leave her a copy of the latest 
production of his Strawberry Hill Press he went away with- 
out waiting to see her, and other similar complaints ; and 
in Walpole's letters to his other correspondents we find, in 
place of the customary raptures of the devoted knight 
errant, a gradually increasing sense of her Ladyship's follies 
and absurdities. 

In July, 1773, she started on another foreign tour, and 
remained abroad until June of the following year. According 
to Mrs. Delany, her Ladyship had resolved to make up for 
the " disgrace " of being refused admittance to Maria 
Theresa's Court by paying her homage to Frederick the 
Great. But Frederick had heard of her as a mischief-maker, 
and when she came to Berlin he went offjto Potsdam on 
purpose to avoid her. She followed him thither ; and, if 
we are to believe Mrs. Delany and Lady Louisa Stuart, the 
redoubtable conqueror was obliged to resort to all sorts of 
undignified shifts in order to avoid a rencontre with her Lady- 
ship. Mrs. Delany goes on to allege that Lady Mary not 
only left Prussia in great indignation, but, being piqued to 
the quick, first sent a note to the King saying she had 
hitherto had the highest admiration for him, but had now 
discovered that, although he might be equal to any of the 
ancient heroes in most respects, he " fell short of them in 
civility." But subsequently Mrs. Delany had to correct 
herself and explain that it was a verbal message, and not 
a note, to this effect that Lady Mary left behind her; so 

64 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

that, after all, the Prussian monarch's withers were probably 
unwrung, for, as Mrs. Delany truly observes, it is not very 
likely that anybody about the Court would be bold enough 
to deliver such a message. But Lady Mary afterwards con- 
trived to make capital even out of this rebuff, for she gave 
her friends to understand that Frederick the Great would 
never have taken so much trouble to avoid meeting her had 
she not been considered a person of high political importance. 
After this she extended her tour to Italy, and towards the 
end of November Walpole informed Sir Horace Mann that 
two English people above the common standard were about 
to visit him at Florence, one being that "great Indian Verres 
or Alexander " Lord Clive, and the other Lady Mary Coke. 
Concerning the latter, he says : — 

" She was much a friend of mine, but a late marriage " [the Duke of 
Gloucester's marriage to Walpole's niece, Lady Waldegrave] " which 
she particularly disapproved, having flattered herself with the hopes of 
one just a step higher " [that is with the Duke of York], " has a little 
cooled our friendship. In short, though she is so greatly born, she has 
a phrenzy for Royalty, and will fall in love with, and at the feet of, the 
great Duke and Duchess, especially the former, for next to being an 
Empress herself, she adores the Empress-Queen, or did — for perhaps 
that passion, not being quite reciprocal, may have waned. However, 
bating every English person's madness, Lady Mary has a thousand 
good qualities. She is noble, generous, high-spirited, undauntable ; is 
most friendly, sincere, affectionate, and above any mean action. She 
loves attention, and I wish you to pay it, even for my sake, for I would 
do anything to serve her. I have often tried to laugh her out of her 
weakness ; but as she is very serious, she was so in that, and if all the 
Sovereigns in Europe combined to slight her, she still would put her 
trust in the next generation of Princes. Her heart is excellent and 
deserves, and would become, a crown, and that is the best of all reasons 
for desiring one." 

Mann appears to have done his best to comply with 
Walpole's wishes, and to show the lady every attention in 
his power ; but after her Prussian experience she was in no 
very conciliatory mood, and everything went wrong. Of 
course Mann expressed his regret to Walpole ; and this drew 

N.D. 65 F 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

from the latter another letter of still not unkindly comment 
on Lady Mary's character. Writing on December 30th 
1773, he says:— 

" Oh ! my dear Sir, you need not make any apologies about the lady, 
who is so angry with your tribunals, and a little with you. If you have 
yet received the letter I wrote to you concerning her some time ago, you 
will have seen that I cannot be surprised at what has happened. It is a 
very good heart, with a head singularly awry ; in short, an extraordinary 
character even in this soil of phenomena. Though a great lady, she 
has a rage for great personages, and for being one of them herself; and 
with these pretensions, and profound gravity, has made herself 
ridiculous at home, and delighted de promener sa folie sour tout I'Europe. 
Her perseverance and courage are insurmountable, as she showed in 
her conduct with her husband and his father, in which contest she got 
the better. Her virtue is unimpeachable, her friendship violent, her 
anger deaf to remonstrance. She has cried for forty people, and 
quarrelled with four hundred. As her understanding is not so perfect 
as her good qualities, she is not always in the right, nor skilful in 
making a retreat. I endeavoured to joke her out of her heroine- 
errantry, but it was not well taken. As she does the strangest things 
upon the most serious consideration, she had no notion that her 
measures were not prudent and important ; and therefore common 
sense, not delivered as an oracle, only struck her as ludicrous. This 
offence, and the success of my niece in a step equally indiscreet, has a 
little cooled our intimacy ; but as I know her intrinsic worth, and value 
it, I beg you will only smile at her pouting, and assist her as much as 
you can. She might be happy and respected, but will always be 
miserable, from the vanity of her views, and her passion for the extra- 
ordinary. She idolized the Empress-Queen, who did not correspond 
with equal sentiments. The King of Prussia, with more feminine 
malice, would not indulge her even with a sight of him ; her non- 
reception at Parma is of the same stuff; and I am amazed that the 
littleness she has seen in so many Sovereigns has not cured her of 
Royal admirations. These Solomons delight to sit to a maker of wax- 
work, and to have their effigies exhibited round Europe, and yet lock 
themselves up in tneir closets when a Queen of Sheba comes to stare 
at their wisdom." 

Towards the end of the letter he returns to the subject, 
and adds : — 

" Her disposition will always raise storms, and you may be involved 
in them as innocently as you have been. I expected to hear of her in 
some strange fracas at Rome ; and as there is another Archduchess at 

66 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

Naples, whatever vision she is disappointed in will be laid to the 
implacability of Juno " [i.e., Maria Theresa]. " For yourself, however, 
you may be easy, for nobody here sees Lady Mary's disasters in a 
serious light." 

Poor Mann had to put up with her Ladyship's vagaries for 
well nigh three months, and was occasionally compelled to 
relieve his feelings in a letter to Walpole. Answering one 
of these on February 2nd, 1774, the latter remarks that the 
" Scotch princess " puts him in mind of Lord Fane, who 
kept his bed six weeks because the Duke of Newcastle had 
ended one of his letters simply " Your humble servant," 
instead of signing, as usual, "Your very humble servant"; 
and on the 23rd of the same month he writes a letter of 
congratulation, in which he says : — 

" I am heartily glad you are rid of the posthumous Duchess. . . . 
She is got to Turin, and will be at home in about two months. 
Seriously, I apprehend that she is literally mad. Her late visions 
pass pride and folly. The world here is seriously disposed to laugh 
at her ; and by a letter that is already come from her to Princess 
Amelia, she does not at all mean to keep her imaginary persecutions 
secret." 

Even after he had got rid of her, however, Lady Mary 
found cause for complaint against him, for after her arrival 
at Turin she tells her sister that, although she has had three 
letters from Sir Horace Mann, he has not once inquired 
about the behaviour of a person he recommended to travel 
with her from Florence, although this person (as such persons 
who served Lady Mary, according to her account, almost 
invariably were) proved " as great a villain as could possibly 
be." And she adds, " I believe I've already hinted that Mr. 
Walpole is no longer my friend." No more letters appear to 
have passed between them ; and soon after her return to 
England in June, 1774, after meeting him at Lady Bland- 
ford's, she remarks, "I'm better pleased that he has ceased 
making professions of friendship. When he professed most he 
was a bitter enemy." A little later she unbent so far as to 
send him a haunch from a buck that had been presented to 

67 f 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

her by Lord Bute, magnanimously observing that " when 
anybody makes advances " she is ready to accept of them. 
But in the following year, when they both happened to be in 
Paris at the same time, he gave her such grievous offence 
that, although they continued to meet at the Princess 
Amelia's and elsewhere, they were never on anything but 
terms of distant civility ever afterwards. What caused the 
split does not appear either in Lady Mary's journal or in 
Walpole's correspondence ; but, according to Lady Louisa 
Stuart, he once gave a verbal account of the affair which 
showed that the offence, like so many others, existed only in 
Lady Mary's imagination. She had been indiscreet enough, 
it appears, to abuse Maria Theresa in the Court of her 
daughter, Marie Antoinette, and had thus drawn upon her- 
self a well-merited rebuff from the French queen. Con- 
sequently, of course, she must shake the dust of France from 
her feet and return instantly to England. About five o'clock 
one morning, Walpole is reported to have said, she came to 
his apartments and had him roused from sleep. He dressed 
hurriedly and came down to her, thinking that, of course, 
some dire calamity must have happened. When he heard, 
therefore, that her only trouble was that Lady Barrymore 
had enticed away her confidential courier and factotum, he 
felt so relieved that he inadvertently exclaimed, " Is that 
all ? " — a natural and innocent remark which sent Lady Mary 
into a fury. He then begged her to compose herself, and 
promised to look out for another courier for her ; but this 
only made matters worse, for she went on to explain excitedly 
that Lady Barrymore was only a tool in the hands of the 
Queen of France, who was evidently executing the com- 
mands of her mother, the Empress of Germany, and that 
the wiling away of her faithful courier evidently meant 
that these implacable enemies were conspiring together to 
have her assassinated during her journey between Paris and 
Calais ! Because Walpole was unable to see the matter 
from this point of view, he was " false," and henceforth to 

68 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

be reckoned amongst her declared enemies. The only 
reference to the matter in his correspondence, however, is a 
passing remark in a letter to Mann on February 15th, 1776, 
to the effect that — 

" Lady Mary Coke has returned some services at Paris, and many 
years of great attentions, with singular rudeness to me since my return 
— but she is mad ; and I suppose the birth of the Prince " [i.e., the son 
of his niece and the Duke of Gloucester] " at Rome will send her to 
Bedlam." 

After this date Lady Mary's name seldom occurs in 
any of his letters, and when it does he usually exhibits 
a tinge of malice in relating some instance of her folly or 
absurdity. 

From her fortieth to her sixty-fifth year, or for about a 
quarter of a century, Lady Mary, whether at home or abroad, 
was in the habit of writing an account of her daily doings in 
the form of a weekly or semi-weekly letter to one of her 
sisters, sometimes addressing it to Lady Dalkeith (after- 
wards Lady Greenwich) and sometimes to Lady Strafford. 
These letters, which were merely a private chronicle of 
personal news, and evidently never written with any view to 
publication, were afterwards put together in the form of a 
journal, and as such it gives a very minute account of the 
daily life of a fine lady of the Georgian era. Between 1889 
and 1896 about a third of this voluminous journal was ably 
edited by the Hon. James Archibald Home and privately 
printed, in four handsome volumes, at the expense of Lord 
Home. Some notion of the quantity of reading matter in it 
may be given by stating that this printed portion, which 
covers only the years 1766 to 1774 inclusive, occupies four 
bulky volumes, containing altogether 1,630 pages, or over 
580,000 words. It is, therefore, rather longer than Hallam's 
" Constitutional History of England " ; and the remaining 
seventeen years of it added to the other would, assuming 
the unprinted part to be of equal fulness, make a book as 
long as Hallam's and Macaulay's histories put together. 

69 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

Few people could be induced to read steadily through such a 
prodigious chronicle of ''small beer," especially when un- 
relieved by any gleam of wit or grace of style. The present 
writer, at any rate, makes no pretence of having done so. 
But a little judicious dipping and the use of the admirable 
index have sufficed to show that the conception of Lady 
Mary's character to be obtained from the writings of her 
friend Horace Walpole and her niece, Lady Louisa Stuart, 
would not be materially altered by the reading of a dozen 
volumes of her own journals. 

From 1749, when she was separated from her husband, 
until 1764, Lady Mary lived with her mother at Sudbrook, 
near Richmond, although for part of that time she had a 
house at Windsor also, to which she repaired on occasion. 
When Duchess Jane died, her daughter's fortune was 
increased by about £12,000 ; and shortly afterwards (in 
1767) she bought a villa at Notting Hill, which remained 
her principal place of abode for over twenty years. The 
garden of her house, in which she took great delight and did 
much work with her own hands, greatly to the advantage of 
her health and vigour, was separated from the grounds of 
Holland House by the narrow lane which still skirts the 
eastern side of that celebrated palatial domain ; and her 
meadows (long since built over, of course), wherein she kept 
cows and poultry, stretched down to the Bayswater Road. 
In her garden was a pond, plentifully stocked with gold and 
silver fish, which, strange to relate, she sometimes " catched " 
and ate at dinner, finding them very good, she says, and 
without many bones. From 1763 to 1775 she had a town 
house also, which she rented from Lady Bateman, over- 
looking the Green Park, and for a short time afterwards one 
in Berkeley Square, and then one in Mount Street. In 1788 
she gave up her Notting Hill villa in favour of a house at 
Chelsea, which was almost as countrified, though much 
nearer to town ; and in 1808, four years before her death, 
she gave this up in its turn in favour of an old mansion, 

70 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

with a high-walled garden, adjoining that of the Duke of 
Devonshire at Chiswick. 

From the time of her reappearance after her husband's 
death, in 1754, when she was seven or eight and twenty years 
of age, until her death, at the age of eighty-five, in 181 1, Lady 
Mary was a conspicuous figure in London society. For 
twenty-seven years of that time she was a constant satellite 
of the Princess Amelia, who used to say that one " so greatly 
born " would always be welcome at her table provided she 
would be a little less contradictory and a little less osten- 
tatious of her great ability towards others whom she imagined 
to be so intellectually inferior. Horace Walpole reports in 
a letter to the Countess of Ossory, dated January 29th, 1780, 
that the Princess had told her guests a night or two before 
an excellent story about Lady Mary. The Princess, it 
appears, was in the habit of dining once a week at Lady 
Holderness's, with only the small party necessary for the 
evening loo. Lady Mary wished to have the honour of 
entertaining her Royal Highness in similar fashion, and the 
Princess consented, only stipulating that it should be a very 
small dinner. She found a banquet, says Walpole. 

" As she sat down, the groom of the chambers presented to her, as 
she thought, an empty gilt salver — for what purpose she could not 
guess ; but on it lay (what she had not seen, being so purblind) two 
gold pins to pin her napkins, as is her way. Still she did not perceive 
they were of gold ; and after dinner flung them away ; when to the 
eternal disgrace of magnificence, Lady Mary retired to hunt for her 
pins." 

Very soon after this, however, she quarrelled irreconcilably 
even with the indulgent Princess. Besides being a fanatical 
admirer of royalty, Lady Mary was a devout Churchwoman 
and an inveterate gambler. On page after page of her 
journal may be read such entries as " Played at Lu ; won 
eleven guineas, and did not come home till near twelve 
o'clock. Read three chapters in Revelations," or " I 
was glad to set down to Lu. I won six and a half guineas, 

7i 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

came home, read three chapters in the Bible, and to bed," 
or " To Lady Harrington's, and was set down to Lu with 
the Duchess of Hamilton. Lost ten guineas, and did not 
get home till half after eleven. Read in the Bible and went 
to bed." But the Bible-reading apparently did not enable 
her to curb her violent temper when she lost at loo, even 
in the presence of royalty, which she reverenced as much 
as, if not more than, she did the Bible ; and one day, when 
she had lost at the card-table, she made some offensive 
observation about the Princess's play. She was given more 
than one opportunity to withdraw, but declined to do so, 
whereupon her Royal Highness called to the page in waiting 
to order Lady Mary Coke's carriage and wished her Ladyship 
health and happiness for the future, but for the present 
" Good-morning ! " She was then bowed out, and they 
never met again. Soon after this she made another expedi- 
tion to the Continent, which, like some former ones, was 
unsuccessful. Walpole reports to Lady Ossory that — 

" Lady Mary Coke has had an hundred distresses abroad, that do not 
weigh a silver penny altogether. She is like Don Quixote, who went in 
search of adventures, and when he found none imagined them. She 
went to Brussels, to see the Archduchess, but either she had bad 
intelligence, or the Archduchess very good, for she was gone when 
Lady Mary arrived ; so was the packet-boat at Ostend,| which she 
believes was sent away on purpose, by a codicil in the Empress- 
Queen's will." 

Her fear of plots against her, due to the enmity of Maria 
Theresa, survived for a long time. If one of her maids, 
irritated by the mistress's ill-temper, showed "insolence" in 
return, the woman was acting in the interests of Maria 
Theresa. She once went to an auction in her neighbour- 
hood and bid for a second-hand chest of drawers. The 
article was worth twenty shillings, perhaps, but when the 
brokers present saw a magnificently attired lady bidding, of 
course they ran the price up to a ridiculous figure, and also 
convinced her that they must be emissaries from Maria 
Theresa. "When she lost some pearls, and thought she had 

72 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

been robbed, though the said pearls all the while were safe 
in a box in Coutts's Bank, she imagined that some agent 
of Maria Theresa's had obtained access to her house at 
Notting Hill. She perpetually changed her tradesmen 
and her servants for suspected complicity in some similar 
Imperial plot, until so difficult was it for her to get 
domestics that her house was filled, says Lady Louisa 
Stuart, with a set of ragamuffins whose characters were so 
bad that they could get no other place. She even seemed 
to believe that the rheumatic pains in her arm and shoulder 
had been caused, at least indirectly, by the Empress-Queen ; 
for it was Maria Theresa, she declared, who had instigated 
her post-boys to drive her into a river near Milan, where she 
sat for some time up to her knees in cold water, and would 
in all probability have been drowned had it not been for her 
faithful courier, who rode up to the post-boys, pistol in hand, 
and forced them to get the horses out of the stream. All 
this, of course, enhanced her already abnormal sense of her 
own great importance, and also made her the laughing- 
stock of London. 

She concerned herself very much about political affairs, 
which were seldom to her liking, for while the Opposition, 
of course, was always in the wrong, the measures of the 
Government rarely met with her entire approbation. The 
fashions also degenerated abominably. She was devoted 
to the hoops and sacks of her younger days, and she thought 
it nothing short of insanity when people took to wearing 
white linen, or ostrich feathers, or other things which she 
denominated fantastic novelties. Her own dress was always 
peculiar and conspicuous, one of her longest-lasting fancies 
being for pea-green and silver. In December, 1782, when 
she was verging on sixty years of age, Lady Louisa Stuart, 
in one of her letters, describes " poor Aunt Mary " as 
haranguing in the booksellers' shops, lecturing the trades- 
men, examining the walls for treason, threatening the 
"democrats" with the Mayor, etc., "and all in a riding 

73 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

habit of the King's dressed uniform, shining with so much 
gold, I am amazed the boys do not follow her." If there 
happened to be any idle boys about Notting Hill one July 
day in the previous year, they may have had an extra treat, 
for Lady Mary, while disporting herself in a riding-dress of 
red and silver, ignominiously fell into a wayside ditch. A 
couple of years later we hear of her driving up to her niece's 
door in a chaise with a magnificent red and silver postilion, 
" and out of it jumped Queen Mary, as magnificent in green 
and silver." Royal and noble mesalliances continued to give 
her great distress. The connection of the Prince of Wales 
with Mrs. Fitzherbert in 1786 set her raving ; and in 
December, 1800, when Lady Hamilton, recently returned 
from Naples with Lord Nelson, was introduced into London 
society, she launched out into a philippic of such vehemence 
and volubility at Lady Lonsdale's one day that a new 
footman, coming into the room with coals, set down the 
scuttle and stared at the lady as if he really believed her to 
be a raving lunatic ; which made so comical a picture that 
his mistress could scarcely restrain herself from laughing 
aloud. At the age of seventy-seven her wonderful vitality 
showed signs of failure ; she had outlived the last of her old 
friends, and began to look thin and wretched. In the 
following year her niece described her as so tottering and 
decrepit that no one could be sorry when the end came. 
But in 1807 she revived again, and Lady Louisa writes of 
her as — 

" really a most astonishing woman to be eighty-two ; still as violent 
and absurd as ever ; all her faculties, and her senses, and her nonsense, 
just the same ! I have long looked for the time when she should 
become, as Wilkes said of himself an ' extinct volcano,' but I believe she 
will blaze on to the very last." 

In 1808 she bought the house at Chiswick whose walled-in 
grounds adjoined those of the Duke of Devonshire. The 
mansion, which had a handsome oak staircase and painted 
walls, had been built by Sir Stephen Fox, the founder of the 

74 



A GRANDE DAME— LADY MARY COKE 

Holland and Ilchester families, and King William the Third 
had been so pleased with it as to say he could pass a week 
there with pleasure. But, according to Lord Gower, Lady 
Mary lived in a very uncomfortable fashion in two of its 
smallest rooms, and died there in a small tent bed, half sunk 
in a recess, which must have been as difficult to get in and 
out of as if it had been a chest of drawers ! Charles Kirk- 
patrick Sharpe, Sir Walter Scott's friend, writing to Lord 
Gower on October 15th, 1811, says : — 

" Lady Mary Coke is dead at last, and has left all her money to the 
Buccleugh family and Lady Douglas. Not a sous to the Argylls, which 
vexes me on poor Lady Charlotte's account. Lady Queensberry tells 
me that Lady Mary died with a high-crowned hat upon her head, tho' 
in bed — like Cleopatra crowned ' Proud Egypt's prouder Queen.' As 
Lord Seafield said of the Scottish Parliament at the Union, ' here's the 
end of an auld sang.' She was the daughter of a sad, robust villain, 
and in character as like her father as Christina of Sweden was to hers. 
Only think of Lord Orford " lie., Horace Walpole] " being in love with 
such a harpy 1 " 

Sharpe evidently had more to say about her, and had gone 
on to add that " she was vulgar : she said ' this here ' and 
' that there,' which was extraordinary, as she must always 
have been in the best circles of society " ; but just at this 
moment the post called, and he was obliged to break off, 
depriving us, doubtless, of further interesting details and 
caustic comments. The Duchess of Buccleuch, writing to 
Lady Douglas immediately after the event, bears out Lord 
Gower's account of the discomfort in which Lady Mary must 
have spent her latter days. It was impossible, she said, to 
describe the dirt and confusion she found in the house : all 
the drawers full of litter ; quantities of useless bills, notes, 
and letters ; a few coins here and there ; a few bank-notes 
in one place, a few in another; papers, wax candles, pins, 
tea, sugar, and all sorts of rubbish, jumbled together indis- 
criminately. 

Horace Walpole, who knew Lady Mary from her youth 
up, and Lady Louisa Stuart, whose observation was limited 

75 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

to that of a young niece on an elderly aunt, both formed much 
the same estimate of her character. She was not a silly 
woman ; on the contrary, she was generally admitted to be 
clever. She was honourable, generous, high-spirited, sincere, 
affectionate, and above any mean action. Her virtue was 
unimpeachable, a commendation which, unhappily, it would 
be impossible to bestow on many of her highly placed con- 
temporaries. But she had little judgment and so much 
vanity, self-conceit, prejudice, obstinacy, and violence of 
temper that she was always putting herself in the wrong. 
She had many warm friendships ; but most of them were too 
warm, and were very apt to be fanned by some fancied slight 
into not merely warm, but burning, resentments. She had 
a very exaggerated notion of her own importance, which, 
together with her " phrenzy for royalty " and the lamentable 
lack of a sense of humour, made her supremely ridiculous. 
Walpole, in the end, was forced to the conclusion that she 
had become really mad. Lady Louisa, however, will not 
hear of this, and declares that there was not the least trace 
of insanity in her composition, but that she was an extra- 
ordinary " character," a unique specimen, as interesting to 
the psychologist as some rare plant would be to a botanist ; 
in short, that she was an eccentric of the first water. 



76 




Sir Henry Bate Dudley. 

After Gainsborough 



II 



A JOURNALISTIC PARSON— SIR HENRY 
BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 



II 



A JOURNALISTIC PARSON— SIR HENRY BATE- 
DUDLEY, BART. 

There were many good parsons in the Church of England 
during the Georgian era, as there have been at all times. 
The reader will probably have little difficulty in calling to 
mind such names as those of pious John Newton, Cowper's 
friend ; of George Crabbe, the poet ; of Gilbert White, the 
tranquil naturalist of Selborne ; of Dr. Samuel Parr, the most 
learned man of his age ; of William Paley, the moral philoso- 
pher ; and of other eminent, though not always highly placed, 
ornaments of their sacred profession. And we need not doubt 
that in obscure villages in every part of the country there 
were to be found good, pious, simple-minded clergymen who 
might well have sat for Goldsmith's portrait of the amiable 
vicar of Wakefield. But during that era there appears to 
have been a considerable proportion of black sheep amongst 
the flock, or rather, to mend the metaphor, a considerable 
proportion of blackamoor shepherds, whose spiritual skins the 
most ardent advocate could never wash into any semblance 
of white. In many country villages the church buildings 
were allowed to fall into decay ; and the incumbent, who 
lived an idle, if not a dissolute, life in London, or Bath, or 
Tunbridge Wells, made only an occasional appearance in his 
parish, when he would stand up in a dirty surplice to preach 
a perfunctory fifteen minutes' sermon to a meagre and practi- 
cally unknown congregation. In some agricultural districts 
services were held in the church not oftener than once a 
month. And even when there was a resident curate-in-charge 

79 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

matters were sometimes not much better, for many of these 
lived, to put it mildly, as free and easy a life as the coarsest 
of their bucolic parishioners, and spent much time which 
should have been otherwise employed in smoking and drink- 
ing punch with the landlord of the village inn. Livings were 
openly bought and sold, and an advertisement might occa- 
sionally be seen in which a pastor unblushingly sought for 
" a curacy in a good sporting country where the duty is light 
and the neighbourhood convivial." A hunting parson has 
been known to perform divine service with scarlet coat and 
top-boots under his surplice ; and it is on record that one 
Sunday in a church near the South Downs the clerk gave 
out notice that there would be no service that evening 
because the parson was going off to Lewes to be in time for 
the races next day. Such things were so much a matter of 
course that, as a rule, nobody thought of complaining, but it 
so happens that on this occasion an aggrieved parishioner 
promptly went to the bishop to acquaint him with this breach 
of clerical duty. " Why is he in such a hurry to get to 
Lewes ? " inquired the bishop. The scandalised parishioner 
declared with a shocked expression that the parson was 
actually going to ride in one of the races. "Then," rejoined 
the right reverend father in God, " I'll bet you two to one he 
wins ! " And there were even more scandalous specimens 
than these. Alexander Knox, himself a clergyman, makes 
the following admission in one of his " Essays " : — 

" I am sorry to be obliged to confess that the serious part of mankind 
have long had just reason to express their abhorrence at the frequent 
occurrence of the professed clerical libertine." And again, "The 
public have long remarked with indignation that some of the most 
distinguished coxcombs, drunkards, debauchees, and gamesters who 
figure at the watering-places and all places of public resort, are young 
men of the sacerdotal order." 

At the same time it may be well to bear in mind that black 
sheep are not always quite so black as they are apt to be 
painted. At any rate, this is so in the case of the Rev. 

80 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

Henry Bate, afterwards Sir Henry Bate-Dudley, Bart., whose 
traditional reputation as a mere bruiser, debauchee, and 
shameless purveyor of scurrilous libels will bear a good deal 
of emendation. 

Henry Bate, the father of the young man who became 
known to fame as "the fighting parson," appears to have 
been a highly respectable clergyman, who came of an old 
and opulent Worcestershire family. For some years he held 
the living of St. Nicholas in the city of Worcester, where 
also he kept a school, which was attended by the sons of the 
principal nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood. Like 
the vicar of Wakefield, he had his quiver full ; and we learn 
from a quaintly worded contemporary record that his son 
Henry, who first saw the light in 1745, was the second of 
twelve children who were " borne to his father in wedlock." 
In due course young Henry was sent to Oxford, where, we 
are assured, he was particularly assiduous in his studies, which 
of course may be true notwithstanding the significant fact 
that he left the University without taking any degree. From 
an incidental remark in a letter of his in the Morning Post, 
in which he speaks of having been in the army, it would 
appear that when he left Oxford his father bought him a 
commission. But he cannot have been a soldier for any 
length of time. In 1763 Lord Camden, then Lord Chancellor, 
presented the elder Bate, with whom he was very intimate, 
to the rectory of North Fambridge, in Essex, where, unfortu- 
nately, both the rector and his wife died a very few years 
after. Whether young Henry was in the army or not at that 
time does not appear, but anyhow he promptly took orders, 
and was soon installed by the Lord Chancellor in the rectory 
of Fambridge in succession to his father. He is said to have 
devoted the whole of the revenues of his cure to the mainte- 
nance of his numerous brothers and sisters, and to have gone off 
to London determined to make a fortune by his pen. Presum- 
ably some poorly paid curate was left to attend to the spiritual 
needs of the parishioners of North Fambridge in the meantime. 

N.D. 81 G 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

When we next hear of the young man he is described 
as curate to the Rev. James Townley, vicar of Hendon, in 
Middlesex. The living of Hendon was in the gift of David 
Garrick, who presented Townley to it in 1772 ; consequently 
young Bate must have been at this time at least twenty-six 
years of age. Townley is remembered as the author of a popular 
farce called " High Life below Stairs." He was believed to 
have assisted Garrick in the composition of several of his 
plays ; and he also assisted another famous friend, William 
Hogarth, in the composition of that painter's " Analysis of 
Beauty." He was a friend of the wits, who admired his 
facility in impromptu epigram ; and he was also a popular 
preacher, having the invaluable gift of adapting his remarks 
to his auditory. It is probable that he introduced his curate 
to Garrick ; at any rate, no long time afterwards we find Bate 
on friendly terms with the great actor, as he afterwards 
became with Cumberland and Colman and all the actors 
and playwrights of the day. Presumably he was at this time 
engaged in winning his spurs as a journalist ; but what first 
brought him prominently before the public was a fracas in 
Vauxhall Gardens in the summer of 1773. The Morning 
Chronicle of July 27th contained an account of this affray, 
which had occurred on the previous Friday night ; but in 
consequence of this account being inaccurate, or at least 
imperfect, Bate himself gave full particulars of what had 
happened in a signed communication to the Morning Post of 
the succeeding Friday. Both the Post and the other papers 
were full of letters, and jokes, and verses, and squibs on the 
subject for a month or more ; but, as nobody made any 
material correction of Bate's narrative, we may in the main 
safely follow his own account of the matter. 

Being at Vauxhall on the previous Friday evening, he 
happened to see Mrs. Hartley, with whom he was acquainted, 
seated on a bench near the orchestra in company with Mr. 
Hartley, Mr. Colman, and Mr. Tateham. Mrs. Hartley, it 
may be necessary to interpolate, was a young and remarkably 

82 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

beautiful actress, who in the previous year had taken the 
town by storm as Jane Shore, and who had been more 
recently delighting audiences at Covent Garden as the Fair 
Rosamond in Hull's " Henry the Second." Bate sat down 
with the group, and joined in their conversation. Presently 
they observed two gentlemen pass by who looked at Mrs. 
Hartley " in a manner not altogether genteel." They took 
little or no notice of this ; but after a short time these fine 
gentlemen returned, accompanied by two or three others of 
a military appearance, who all seated themselves at a table 
immediately opposite to Mrs. Hartley, and tried to stare 
her out of countenance. She bore it silently for a time, and 
then complained to Mr. Hartley. That gentleman, being 
apparently a peace-at-any-price man, begged her to keep her 
seat till the conclusion of the cantata then being performed, 
after which, he said, they would all retire. But the siege of 
these gallant heroes became so unendurable that she told her 
friends she could bear it no longer. Bate thereupon turned 
his head, and " discovered four of these pretty things staring 
at her with that kind of petit mattre audacity which no 
language but the modern French can possibly describe." 
He instantly got up, and remarking loudly enough for them 
to hear that he would prevent any further insult of that 
nature, he placed himself on a seat directly between them 
and Mrs. Hartley. But, instead of discontinuing the siege, 
they now directed their laughter and raillery against him. 
He turned to face them, when, as he rather curiously, and 
perhaps apologetically, phrases it, "some distortions of 
features, I believe, passed on both sides." 

Mrs. Hartley, in disgust, rose up and made for the walk, 
and, of course, her company followed her ; but before Bate 
quitted the scene he informed the staring gentlemen that 
they were " four impertinent puppies." As he walked away 
one of them, whom he afterwards found to be Captain Crofts, 
of Burgoyne's Light Dragoons, followed and inquired whether 
that remark had been addressed to him. Bate replied, 

83 g 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

certainly not, as he did not recollect to have seen him in the 
party. Not satisfied with this answer, Crofts persisted in 
asking whether the other had called him a puppy. Bate 
answered as before, but added that if his questioner would 
say that he was one of the party, then the remark would 
apply to him, for what he had said, and what he repeated, 
was that the party of gentlemen who so meanly and 
scandalously distressed the lady with whom he was in 
company were "four dirty, impertinent puppies." There- 
upon the Captain surveyed the parson from head to foot, 
and observed superciliously, " You are indeed a good tight 
fellow, and therefore, I suppose, mean to intimidate me 
because you are a boxer." Why he should have made such 
a remark is not very clear, because, according to all the 
accounts, they were strangers to one another. Perhaps he 
jumped to that conclusion from his survey of the parson's 
physique, for, as Henry Angelo informs us, Bate was then 
" as magnificent a piece of humanity, perhaps, as ever walked 
arm in arm with a fashionable beauty in the illuminated 
groves of Vauxhall." However that may be, Bate replied 
that boxing was by no means his intention, and proceeded to 
walk on ; but when the other continued to follow and make 
remarks, he turned round and declared that if three more 
impertinent words were addressed to him he would wring 
Crofts' nose off his face. On this the Captain asked him 
for his name and address, which were instantly given. Bate 
then drew off to his company, imagining that the affair 
would, at least, stand peaceably over till the morrow. 

He and his company proposed to leave the Gardens 
immediately, but were obliged to walk round first in search 
of one of their number who was missing. When at the 
further end of the promenade they met with their former 
assailants, reinforced by several others, when a fresh attack 
instantly began, insolence to the lady being accompanied by 
" Twig the curate ! " and other pleasantries levelled at her 
protector. Submitting to this, he says, as long as human 

84 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

nature could endure it, at last he stopped short, with the 
intention of knocking down the first man who made another 
insulting remark. Then Captain Crofts stepped up, touched 
him on the shoulder, and addressing him by name, begged to 
speak another word with him. He had forgotten Mr. Bate's 
address, he explained, and was under the necessity of asking 
for it again. It was immediately repeated, but Bate recom- 
mended Crofts to get pen and ink from one of the waiters 
and write it down, that he might not forget it again. 

While this was being done, writes Bate, " a little effeminate 
being, whom I afterwards found to be a Mr. Fitz-Gerral, 
came up to me, dressed a la Macaroni" and impertinently 
asked whether any man had not a right to look at a fine 
woman. The man thus contemptuously described by Bate, 
it may be remarked parenthetically, was Robert Fitzgerald, 
still remembered as " fighting Fitzgerald," the celebrated 
duellist. After getting over his surprise at this unwarranted 
interference of a man who was not present at the dispute, 
Bate replied that he would even go so far as to despise the 
man who did not look at a fine woman ; but he begged leave 
to observe that there was more than one way of looking at 
her, and that the persons whom he had censured had looked 
at her in such a way that, he repeated once more, they were 
" four dirty, impertinent puppies." After the exchange of a 
few more civilities of this kind, Mr. Fitzgerald, in his anger, 
clapped his hand to his sword, as though he were going to 
draw on an unarmed man, when he was interrupted by 
Captain Crofts, who observed that he presumed Bate to be a 
clergyman. Receiving an answer in the affirmative, he said, 
" Perhaps you will take advantage of your profession, and 
not give me the satisfaction I shall demand ? " He was told 
in reply that the other would never avail himself of that to 
do anything derogatory to the character of a gentleman. 
By this time a crowd had gathered round, and Fitzgerald 
thought to score a point by becoming very facetious on the 
subject of parsons, whereto Bate retaliated by making fun 

85 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

of the dress and appearance of a Macaroni. Then the crowd 
wanted to know the cause of the dispute, and, of course, 
gave the parson the advantage, for in a short speech of a few 
sentences he was able to convince them that his opponents 
were entirely in the wrong ; whereupon they were hooted 
and hustled out of the way, while Bate with his company 
took coach and returned to town. 

This, however, was only the end of the first act of the 
comedy, for in the Morning Post of the following day Bate 
went on to tell what had happened afterwards. About two 
o'clock of the morning following this affray Bate's servant 
had wakened him to read a letter which had just come by a 
special messenger having the appearance of a tavern waiter, 
whose instructions were to carry back an answer. The 
letter was from Captain Crofts, demanding satisfaction and, 
presuming that his fists were the only weapons a reverend 
gentleman would fight with, requesting him to name there 
and then his own place and time for a boxing bout. If 
refused this satisfaction, the Captain gfenially declared he 
would hunt the parson up and down London till he found 
him, and then would pull his nose, and spit in his face, and 
pull the black coat off his back. Thus challenged, while 
only half awake, Bate sent back word immediately that he 
was quite prepared to meet Captain Crofts in his rooms at 
Clifford's Inn at a specified hour that day ; but later on he 
changed his mind and sent another message to say that, 
accompanied by a friend, he would await Captain Crofts 
from two to four o'clock at the " Turk's Head " coffee-house 
in the Strand. Captain Crofts, attended by his friend the 
Hon. Mr. Lyttelton, duly arrived ; and after a good deal of 
parleying the boxing bout was abandoned, pistols were 
provided, and the party made ready for a jaunt to Richmond 
Park. 

Just as they were about to leave the place for this purpose 
Fitzgerald suddenly broke into the room, and, in an insolent 
tone of voice, demanded satisfaction in the name of his 

86 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

friend " Capt. Miles," who, he said, was waiting with the 
utmost impatience in the adjoining coffee-room. How Fitz- 
gerald knew that Bate was then to be found at the " Turk's 
Head," seeing that the revised appointment had only been 
made just before the specified time, was a curious circum- 
stance, the significance of which did not appear until after- 
wards. However, Bate naturally replied that he could only 
fight one man at a time, and that he was now engaged to 
Captain Crofts. Moreover, as he had never either seen or 
heard of " Capt. Miles," he was quite sure that he could 
not have offended him. Fitzgerald replied that his friend 
" Capt. Miles " was terribly enraged ; that he would only 
fight the parson in his own way, viz., with his fists ; and 
that if Bate did not consent to box with him instantly he 
would knock the curate down as he left that room, or when- 
ever he should first meet with him. The two seconds 
seemed at first to be of opinion that Bate was bound to go 
out with Captain Crofts, and consequently need take no 
notice of this other challenge which had been sprung upon 
him ; but after some discussion they arrived at the conclusion 
that it would be best to patch up their quarrel by some 
concessions made on both sides, and thus leave Bate free 
to deal with the other matter as he pleased. Accordingly, 
Captain Crofts was induced to declare that Mrs. Hartley 
had been ungently treated, and that Mr. Bate had acted with 
great spirit and propriety in defending her, whereupon 
Bate, on his part, readily begged Captain Crofts' pardon for 
any unguarded expressions he may have used in consequence 
of a misunderstanding. Captain Crofts and his second then 
withdrew, and " Capt. Miles " was introduced. Bate at 
once told him that he had never seen his face before, and 
was ignorant therefore how he could possibly have offended 
him. " Capt. Miles," a fellow of herculean proportions, 
gave a rather confused answer, and, without making it clear 
that he had received any personal affront, declared that he 
was there to take the part of his friend Mr. Fitzgerald by 

87 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

boxing the parson. Bate urged that he was not in the 
habit of boxing with gentlemen, whereupon he was informed 
that if he did not box there and then Miles would beat him 
at Vauxhall or in any other public place where they might 
chance to meet. Bate being thus forced into the distasteful 
encounter, the party adjourned to a large room in the 
" Spread Eagle " tavern, where both the champions stripped 
and set to. Then, however, to the surprise of everybody, 
the parson, though considerably the smaller man, did not 
receive a single blow of any consequence, while in about 
fifteen minutes the herculean Miles was clean knocked out, 
and had to be removed in a hackney coach, with his face 
beaten into a jelly. It afterwards turned out (and Fitz- 
gerald admitted it) that the so-called " Capt. Miles" was 
a great hulking pugilistic servant of his, whom he had 
dressed up as a gentleman for the purpose, and that the 
previous appointment with Crofts and the patching up of 
that quarrel were part of a conspiracy to get the parson 
safely chastised by proxy. 

Similar affrays were by no means uncommon in those 
days. Henry Angelo tells us that Vauxhall was then more 
like a bear-garden than a place of rational amusement. The 
price of admission was one shilling only, and the place was 
crowded with all sorts and conditions of men and women, 
citizens and their wives, apprentices and girls of the town, 
fine gentlemen and ladies, all being mingled together in one 
heterogeneous mob. Rings were continually being made in 
various parts of the Gardens to decide the quarrels that 
perpetually arose ; and whenever there happened to be a lull 
in this species of sport, the light-fingered gentry did not fail 
to get up mock quarrels of their own to afford opportunity 
for the exercise of their profession. When Angelo came to 
write his " Reminiscences," in 1828, public conduct was more 
decorous ; and, like an old war-horse scenting the battle, he 
deplored the absence of " such glorious kicks-tip " as he had 
enjoyed in less insipid days. 

88 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

Amongst his other titles to fame, the " fighting parson " 
must be set down as one of the pioneers of modern journalism. 
The Morning Post was started in November, 1772, as a rival 
(and it very soon became a powerful rival) to the Morning 
Chronicle, which had been founded three years previously. 
Nine months later, at the time of the Vauxhall affray, Bate 
was evidently a prominent member of the staff; and he had 
probably been so from the first. In politics the Post was, 
according to one of the latest historians of our English 
newspaper press, " a shameless organ of the King's party, 
then presided over by Lord North " ; and it speedily acquired 
also " an evil reputation as a retailer of coarse social gossip." 
But we must not judge either it or Bate by our present high 
standard of journalism. " Shameless organs " of any party 
are happily unknown in our time, and our political conflicts 
in the press are always characterised by sweet reasonableness 
and the most exquisite courtesy. Brilliant and sparkling 
society intelligence we have, indeed ; but anything which 
could be justly termed coarse social gossip has long ago 
ceased to exist. Our modern papers furnish us with admir- 
able free and dashing comment on the opinions and per- 
formances of the men and women of the hour, but the 
imputation of unworthy motives, or the use of vulgar 
Billingsgate, modern journalists would be ashamed to write 
and modern editors to print. But there was a different 
standard of public taste, as of public morals, in Bate's time ; 
and, like more recent practitioners of his craft, he realised 
that the way to make a paper pay is to give the public what 
it wants. John Taylor, author of " Monsieur Tonson " and 
a well-known miscellaneous writer of the time, tells us that 
before the Morning Post appeared newspapers were generally 
dull, heavy, and insipid, and that there was what he terms 
a " sportive severity " in Bate's writing which gave a new 
character to the public press. Taylor admits that Bate was 
somewhat too free and personal in his strictures ; but he says 
also that it ought to be remembered that those whom he 

89 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

attacked " were generally characters of either sex who had 
rendered themselves conspicuous for folly, vice, or some 
prominent absurdity by which they became proper subjects for 
satirical animadversion." One consequence of his " sportive 
severity " was that after he assumed its editorship, in 1775, the 
circulation of the Morning Post went up by leaps and bounds. 
But there were other consequences also, for his style of 
journalism has certain disadvantages for its practitioners. 
The modern editor has only to reckon with the law of libel ; 
his Georgian predecessor had to be ready to fight duels as 
well. The first, though by no means the last, affair of this 
kind in which Bate was concerned occurred in January, 
1777. Some paragraphs appeared in the Morning Post 
reflecting on the character of the Countess of Strathmore, 
whose conduct had been undoubtedly somewhat indiscreet. 
A bankrupt half-pay lieutenant named Stoney, who had 
already dissipated in riotous living a fortune which he had 
acquired from a deceased wife, was then paying his addresses 
to the Countess ; and he naturally took up the cudgels in 
her behalf. Bate tried to smooth matters over by saying 
that the paragraphs objected to were inserted without his 
knowledge; but this did not satisfy Stoney, who insisted 
upon the discovery of the author or " the satisfaction of a 
gentleman." A few days after this, as the Gentleman's 
Magazine reports, they met, " as it were by accident," when — 

" they adjourned to the Adelphi, called for a room, shut the door, 
and, being furnished with pistols, discharged them at each other without 
effect. They then drew swords, and Mr. Stoney received a wound in 
the breast and arm, and Mr. Bate one in the thigh. Mr. Bate's sword 
bent, and slanted against the Captain's breast-bone, which Mr. Bate 
apprising him of, Captain Stoney called to him to straighten it ; and in 
the interim, while the sword was under his foot for that purpose, the 
door was broken open, or the death of one of the parties would most 
certainly have been the issue." 

From the same authority we learn that five days afterwards 
Captain Stoney was married to the lady on whose behalf he 

go 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

had thus hazarded his life. A story afterwards got abroad 
that the brave " Captain " had only engaged in a sham duel 
with Bate, presumably for the purpose of furthering his suit 
with the lady. But this report was promptly denied, and 
Bate gave his antagonist a testimonial to the effect that he 
" bled like a pig." 

Fortunately for himself, Bate was both a good shot and an 
accomplished swordsman, for although he does not appear 
to have been a challenger, he was frequently in receipt of 
amiable invitations of that kind from other people. Shortly 
after the before-mentioned affair he even went out with one 
of the proprietors of his own paper. A general meeting of 
the proprietors had been held to consider some plan by 
which he proposed to promote the prosperity of the paper. 
All of them spoke against it, with the exception of Mr. 
Joseph Richardson, who kept silent. Bate, in a temper, 
called them a parcel of cowards, and withdrew from the 
meeting. After he had gone Alderman Skinner made the 
very safe threat that, if he had not a wife and family, he would 
call their editor to account for the stigma which he had 
applied to them. Richardson was the only bachelor present, 
and this put him upon his mettle to obtain an apology, or at 
least to obtain the exception of himself from the imputation 
of cowardice. He accordingly wrote a rather high-flown 
letter, and sent it to Bate by the hand of his friend John 
Taylor. The answer was not conciliatory, and, after two 
more letters, the parties arranged to meet at five o'clock one 
morning in Hyde Park. A coin being tossed for first fire, 
the lot fell to the editor, who wounded his proprietor in the 
right arm, rendering him, of course, unable to use his pistol. 
Bate then came forward and said that if Mr. Richardson's 
letter had been in a less peremptory style there would have 
been no need for the duel, as he held that gentleman in 
respect and esteem, and would most willingly have exempted 
him from the imputation. There is an amusing pendant to 
this story. Richardson's second on the field was a friend 

9i 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

named Mills, who was a surgeon. As soon as they reached 
home, and Mills had examined the wound, he gave a highly 
comical exhibition of a mixed emotion. " Don't be alarmed, 
Joey," he exclaimed ; " this is only a five-guinea job ! " thus 
showing the joy of friendship at Richardson's escape from 
serious injury, mingled with the pleasure of the pro- 
fessional man at the prospect of getting a substantial fee 
out of him. 

The only person that Bate can be said to have challenged 
was an Irish duellist of rather shady character, named 
Brereton. He was one day expecting a challenge, and being 
unprovided with arms, sent off to Brereton, with whom he 
had been acquainted for some time, to borrow his pistols. 
Brereton was delighted, and when he brought the weapons 
expatiated on their merits with much enthusiasm. The 
other party, however, did not proceed to extremities, and 
Bate, therefore, took back the pistols unused. Brereton was 
greatly enraged when he found that his darling pistols had 
been borrowed for nothing, and in the heat of his temper 
seemed inclined to fasten a quarrel upon Bate. The more 
conciliatory the parson showed himself the more furious the 
Irishman became, until at last Bate quietly observed, " I see 
what it is you want ; I'll take this pistol " — picking one of 
them up — " you take the other, and we'll settle the matter 
immediately." " Ah," exclaimed the Irishman, " I see you 
are a man of spirit ; but, as you are an old friend, let us 
shake hands and consider the matter settled already." This 
same Brereton, by the way, came to a violent end some 
years later in a Dublin tavern. He was waiting at the 
bottom of a staircase, sword in hand, ready to attack a man 
whom he expected to descend unprepared. The other, 
however, knowing the sort of man with whom he had to 
deal, came down with his sword drawn, attacked Brereton 
first, and gave him such wounds that he died on the spot. 

But the whole of Bate's energies were not exhausted by 
journalism and duelling. Amongst his other activities, he 

92 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

produced a number of comic operas for Drury Lane Theatre, 
incited thereto, perhaps, by his vicar, Townley, and his friend 
Garrick. One or two of them met with moderate success, 
and one or two were damned. One historian of the news- 
paper press stigmatises Bate as a writer of " licentious " 
plays. The critic can never have read his by no means 
brilliant, but certainly quite inoffensive, productions. Such 
of them as the present writer has examined are no more witty 
or wise, but neither are they one whit more " licentious," 
than most of the comic operas which have pleased this 
fastidious generation. They are lively little productions of 
their kind, and contain several amusing characters ; while, 
although the songs with which they are interspersed are 
totally without literary merit, no doubt they sounded well 
enough when set to appropriate music. What " The 
Blackamoor Washed White " was like it is impossible to 
say, as the piece was never printed ; but the riot which 
occasioned its withdrawal after the fourth night, in February, 
1776, had nothing to do with its merits or demerits as a play. 
From a letter to Garrick we learn that the author had availed 
himself of some " masterly hints and emendations " by the 
great actor ; and Mrs. Siddons, who had just been engaged 
at Drury Lane on the strength of Bate's report on her 
performances at Bath, was given a prominent character in 
the piece. But the author got wind that an organised 
opposition was projected ; engineered, it was supposed, by 
some of those who had suffered from his satirical hits in the 
Morning Post ; and he accordingly engaged a number of 
pugilists to give assistance if necessary, and planted all the 
stalwart friends and supporters he could muster in various 
parts of the house. Henry Angelo, who was one of this 
number, relates that the clamour commenced by the opposi- 
tion party giving vent to cat-calls, hisses, and yells. The 
author's friends responded by clapping of hands and cries of 
" Turn them out ! " And so it went on for some time, until 
Bate indulged in a piece of bad generalship. A number of 

93 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

friends whom he had collected behind the scenes, accom- 
panied by several well-known pugilists, were made to cross 
in front of the curtain from one stage door to another, 
shaking their doubled fists and making other menacing 
gestures towards the audience. This false move enlisted the 
occupants of the galleries on the side of his opponents, and 
was the signal for a general attack. The occupants of the 
boxes were pelted with showers of oranges, apples, and other 
convenient missiles ; and then there was a rush, in which not 
only fists, but bludgeons, were freely used, until the author's 
party was completely routed. Bate seems to have made no 
further attempt at dramatic authorship for two or three 
years; and when his " Flitch of Bacon" appeared, in 1779, 
it was unmolested, and had a good run. It not only put 
money into the author's pocket, but it also made the fortune 
of William Shield, who was selected by Bate to write the 
music for it. Shield was the son of a provincial music- 
master, who, after being apprenticed to a boat-builder, gave 
up that occupation to become a professional musician, like 
his father. At the time Bate picked him out he was first 
violin in the orchestra of the Italian Opera ; but this first 
operatic venture of his own was so successful that he was 
appointed composer in general to Covent Garden, and he 
concluded a prosperous career by becoming Master of 
Musicians in Ordinary to the King. 

In 1780, being then thirty-five years of age and a person 
of some consequence both in London and in the country 
(for he was a squire, and a justice of the peace for the county 
of Essex), Bate married. Of the lady of his choice little is 
known, except that she was the sister of the celebrated 
actress Mrs. Hartley, through championship of whom in 
Vauxhall Gardens, as we have seen, Bate had sprung into 
fame (or notoriety) seven years previously. Like Mrs. 
Hartley, she is said to have been a great beauty ; and, in the 
absence of any details concerning her, it may be permissible 
to give a short account of what is known concerning her sister, 

94 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

who retired from the stage in the same year that Bate married. 
She was very reticent, and always refused to gratify those 
who sought biographical details of her early life. But, 
according to an anonymous writer in the London Magazine 
for 1773, she was born in 175 1, of obscure parents named 
White, in the village of Berrow, in Somersetshire. She was 
both a great beauty and a great " romp " ; and while acting 
as domestic servant in a private family she was courted by a 
lively and idle young gentleman, for whose sake she left her 
situation, and who, to avoid the curiosity and displeasure of 
his friends, assumed the name of Hartley. The young 
gentleman's resources becoming exhausted, he suggested that 
she should try her fortune on the stage, which she did with 
astonishing success. " His mistress, of course," observes 
this writer, " had an equal claim to it, and she still keeps 
both the lover and the name." She still kept the lover at the 
time of the Vauxhall affray, though she apparently got rid of 
him no long time afterwards ; the name she retained until 
her retirement from the stage. She was a favourite sitter of 
Sir Joshua Reynolds ; and one day, when he complimented 
her on her beauty, she replied, " Nay, my face may be well 
enough for shape, but sure 'tis as speckled as a toad's belly." 
All who described her, however, went into raptures over her. 
One critic says : — 

" The whole form is so admirably put together that the parts seem to 
be lost into each other, and to defy the eye with their beauties. The 
features of her face are marked with the same regularity. Her eye is 
lively, though not brilliant, her skin is not singularly fair, and her hair 
is dark red. In a word, taking her altogether, she gives one the idea of 
a Greek beauty." 

Hull, the dramatist, said that he had despaired of finding 
an actress young and beautiful enough to represent Fair 
Rosamond, and had consequently abandoned a play which 
he had begun on Henry the Second ; but the happy suitability 
of Mrs. Hartley's figure, her •' crisped locks, like threads of 
gold," her sparkling eyes, and the softness and gentleness of 

95 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

her demeanour had induced him to take up his unfinished 
tragedy and complete it for the stage. Two years after her 
retirement her death was reported in the Gentleman's Magazine 
for June, 1782 ; but in the following month the report was 
contradicted, and the public was assured that she was living 
in the south of France, in good health, " and passes by the 
name of White." She appears to have made enough while 
on the boards to keep her in easy circumstances for the 
remainder of her life ; and when she died, forty-four years 
later, she left a fair estate. 

Either just before or just after his marriage, Bate quarrelled 
irreconcilably with the proprietors of the Morning Post, and 
having left them, he promptly started a rival paper, called 
the Morning Herald. According to the announcement in its 
first number, it was to be conducted on Liberal principles ; 
and there was, of course, bitter rivalry between the two 
papers, the Post becoming more Tory than ever and the 
Herald enthusiastically supporting the party of the Prince of 
Wales. But Bate had not altogether got quit of the Morning 
Post, for in this same year he was had up before the court 
for a libel on the Duke of Richmond, which had appeared before 
he left the paper. The libel was in the form of a series of 
queries, and imputed to the Duke a variety of treasonable 
practices and designs, accusing him, amongst other things, 
of having in his speeches in the House of Lords opposed the 
increase of the military strength of the kingdom in order to 
facilitate an invasion by the French, and of having conveyed 
intelligence in furtherance of this end to the Ministers of 
France. Both Bate and the printer of the paper were 
sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in the King's 
Bench, the judgment being delayed for a time to allow for 
the rebuilding of the prison apartments, which had been 
burnt during the Lord George Gordon riots. Bate and his 
newly married wife occupied the two front rooms over the 
entrance, where he entertained his friends and spent a 
tolerably cheerful time. Like many other sons of the 

96 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

Church, observes his friend Angelo, he kept a good table, 
and was no mean professor of gastronomy, although he 
always declared that he was no epicure, two dishes — a turbot 
and a haunch — being always sufficient for him, followed 
occasionally by an apricot tart. His chief resource during 
his confinement was the game of cribbage, at which he was 
very expert. Poor Henry Angelo lugubriously relates how 
he played at it there so long one evening that the gates were 
shut on him, and he had to stay the night, when, although 
he was made as comfortable as the place permitted, and 
Mrs. Bate lent him a blanket from her own bed, the horror of 
being in a prison prevented him from getting a wink of sleep. 
Bate, however, never appeared to be out of spirits during 
the whole twelvemonth. 

The Morning Herald was going strong, and Bate seems to 
have been in no want of funds, for shortly after coming out 
of prison he bought the advowson of Bradwell-juxta-Mare, 
in Essex, for £1,500, subject, of course, to the life of the 
existing incumbent, who was a man of infirm health, and 
did not reside in his parish. But creaking doors hang long ; 
and the Rev. George Pawson, by living in a more salubrious 
place and religiously abstaining from his clerical duties, 
hung on for another sixteen years. Meanwhile Bate obtained 
from him a lease of the glebe and tithes, and established 
himself as curate-in-charge. The annual profits of the place 
were supposed to exceed £700 ; but, as Bate told the Bishop 
of London in the course of the controversy which after- 
wards arose, — 

" On going over the glebe previous to the purchase, I found it to 
consist of about 300 acres of land, but in so ruinous a state from 
inundations, and various causes of extreme neglect, that the tenant was 
broken upon it, and no other could be procured to become its occupier. 
It was destitute of every building necessary for the conduct of the 
business. On applying to the farmer whose premises it adjoined, he 
declared to me that he would not possess it on a lease of seven years 
rent free. The church and the chancel were in a similar state, the 
churchyard without fence, and its graves, even, disturbed by the hogs 

N.D. 97 H 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

of the village. From the then unhealthiness of the country, no rector 
or vicar resided within many miles of this deserted peninsula ; nor 
could a curate of decent manners be found to live there, on any terms, 
for the due discharge of the ordinary parochial duties." 

Nevertheless Bate bought the advowson, and went to 
reside on the spot, though not, we may presume, without 
frequent excursions to London. Three years later, when he 
assumed the name of Dudley, in conformity with the will of 
a relative from whom he inherited a fortune, Bate — whom 
we must henceforth call Dudley, or Bate-Dudley — was able 
to devote both more time and more money to the interests 
of the church and parish. He says : — 

" The first steps I took were to see the church, with the chancel, 
repaired as became a place of public worship, to have the services 
of it regularly administered, to promote the increase of a neglected 
congregation, to restore the free school to the useful purposes of its 
institution, and to form a police for the protection of a country that 
I found lawless. My next objects were to drain the glebe lands, and 
prevent the sea from continuing to overflow them, for which I was 
honoured by the Society of Arts and Sciences with a reward of their 
gold medal." 

The dilapidated rectory was turned into a handsome 
country house, which thenceforth became well known as 
Bradwell Lodge, where Bate-Dudley entertained liberally, 
and played the part of squire and magistrate as well as that 
of parson. Henry Angelo records that he had spent many a 
pleasant day there in company with other friends ; and one 
or two of his garrulous reminiscences are rather amusing : — 

" Once, I recollect, his guests then on a visit there had been promised 
to be entertained with a supper h I'ltalian, in which I played the part 
of chief cuisinier, arrayed in a proper costume. The pleasantry which 
occurred in the kitchen on this occasion was such as would have worked 
well into a scene for a comedy. Among other guests was a French 
officer, who, affecting the Amphitrion and grande critique gastronomique, 
with true French fanfaronade abused every dish, and boasted his 
native cookery above all other, ancient or modern. Bate-Dudley 
whispered, ' Now mark you, I'll roast Monsieur.' Which he did to a 
turn of the spit, and, with that delectable badinage at which he was so 

9 8 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

great an adept, proved to all the company that Monsieur le Capitaine 
must have been originally himself a cuisinier. This produced mighty 
amusement, as a wag of the party helped on the frolic by dubbing 
Monsieur — another Captain Cook ! " 

Bate-Dudley was a keen sportsman, and kept a pack of 
harriers, as poor Angelo, who does not mind telling a good 
story against himself, had cause to remember, for, having 
boasted one night in his cups of his feats of horsemanship, 
his host made him ride to hounds next day on a particularly 
vicious and harum-scarum beast, so that, being in reality a 
very poor horseman, he was in an agony of fear for his life 
all the time, and returned home, as he admits, bumped and 
bruised " worse than a City apprentice at the Epping hunt." 

Dudley was likewise a bold and dexterous yachtsman, 
whereof also Angelo preserved an uncomfortable memory : — 

" Once he tempted me to an excursion in a boat which to many 
would have appeared not seaworthy. ' Come, Harry, my boy,' said he, 
' to-morrow will be lamb fair at Ipswich ; we can sail to Harwich, and 
tramp onwards to Ipswich ; we will make a day of it, and see what is 
to be seen ; there will be plenty of amusement, I promise you : so rise 
in the morning betimes.' The vessel was ready ; and having provided 
a bottle of cognac, with some other more substantial /rog', we embarked. 
' Where is the crew ? ' said I. ' There ! ' said he, pointing to a rough - 
visaged old boatman, and a boy to steer ; adding, ' Old Tooke and 
Parson Bate in this cock-boat would cross the Atlantic, wouldn't we, 
my old Trojan ? ' ' Aye, Master Bate, that we would, or we'd sink 
afore we gave it up. Why, young man ' (addressing himself to me, 
who doubtless looked pale enough, as the black clouds prognosticated 
a storm), ' I and Master there would double the Cape in her : she's a 
tight old boat, and dances over the water like a cork.' Such a dance 
I was never led, before nor since ; for it blew a hurricane, and we were 
driven about, nearly swamped, lost our kitchen, were wrecked in the 
mud, and scrambled ashore in the dark ; our captain, old Tooke, and 
the young cockswain enjoying the funk into which they had got a 
fresh-water sailor." 

Such frolics as these greatly delighted the energetic and 
athletic parson, and it seems to have been in a similar spirit 
of sportive adventure that he tackled the poachers and the 
smugglers of the district. He was a magistrate, says the 

99- H 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

Gentleman's Magazine, who never slept at his post, and some 
of whose enterprises against the lawless were quite extra- 
ordinary. Once again we may draw upon Henry Angelo's 
artless and garrulous narrative for a concrete instance : — 

" At the commencement of his office, the neighbourhood had been 
greatly infested by that worst of varment (to use the gamekeeper's 
phrase) the poacher. A certain lonely cottage had been pointed out 
to his worship as the nightly rendezvous of a determined gang of the 
robbers. He had his secret informer, who had been a confederate; 
and one night, when they were met to settle their plan of depredations, 
Mr. Bate rapped at the door. It was immediately opened, when he 
beheld the ruffians, each of whom instantly seized his loaded piece. 
' Put your guns away, ye rogues. Know ye not that I am Justice 
Bate ? ' exclaimed the magistrate, with a determined air, looking 
deliberately around. ' Rogues ! I know ye all. Give me your gun, 
fellow ' (to the nearest). ' You had better stand off,' said the poacher. 
Sir Dudley " (sic) " immediately took him by the collar, and wrested it 
from him. ' Lay down your pieces, every one of you — resist at your 
peril ... lay down your arms, I say, and go home to your families, 
you wicked ruffians.' Appalled at his firmness, each laid his piece 
upon the table ; and he turned them out. Then, going to the door and 
shouting ' Constables 1 ' the fellows took to their heels, and a party of 
the police who were in attendance came in, and the weapons, with 
guns, snares, and other implements for destroying game, were collected 
and borne away without the least resistance. And by this one act of 
intrepidity the bold magistrate broke up the gang." 

But when the Rev. George Pawson was gathered to his 
fathers, in 1797, and Dudley presented himself to the living of 
Bradwell, the Bishop of London refused to institute on the 
ground of simony. This objection was doubtless only a legal 
excuse which happened to lie ready to the bishop's hand, 
and the real cause of his refusal was probably disapproval of 
the character of the fighting parson. In addition to the other 
somewhat unclerical characteristics and accomplishments 
which have been enumerated, Dudley had recently been 
defendant in an action for crim. con. after having some time 
previously fought a duel with the husband, and although the 
verdict had been given in his favour, his defence had been 
mainly based upon technical grounds. However this may 

100 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

be, after a long controversy and the institution of a suit 
which never came into court, a compromise was arrived at 
according to which Dudley's brother-in-law, the Rev. R. 
Birch, was to be collated to the living. It was then dis- 
covered that, in consequence of the patron having failed to 
exercise his right within a specified time, the next presenta- 
tion had lapsed to the Crown, whereupon the Rev. Richard 
Gamble, Chaplain-General to the Forces, was appointed to 
the living. There was great indignation in the county, for 
Dudley seems to have been extremely popular ; and, little 
as we hear of any spiritual ministrations to his parishioners, 
he deserved to be, for he had not only restored the church 
and school of Bradwell, but, at a total cost to himself of 
£28,000, he had reclaimed a large tract of land from the 
inroads of the sea, thus turning a pestilential swamp into a 
healthy and habitable district, had made the roads passable, 
and so had improved not only the village itself, but the whole 
neighbourhood for miles round. The news of Gamble's 
appointment happening to reach Chelmsford during the 
assizes, the assembled magistrates promptly despatched a 
message to Pitt in favour of Dudley. Subsequently a memorial 
was sent to Addington signed by several peers, as well as by the 
whole lay magistracy of the county, to the following effect : — 

" We, the Lord Lieutenant, High Sheriff, and Magistrates of the 
County of Essex, having perused and duly considered the memorial and 
case of the Rev. Henry Bate-Dudley, have great satisfaction in offering 
this testimony of our opinion of the additional and recent services which 
he has rendered to the public, by stating — That in the course of the 
last summer he suppressed an alarming and dangerous insurrection 
within the district wherein which he resides, by personally securing 
and bringing to conviction the ringleaders thereof; for which he received 
the thanks of the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Kenyon, at the Assizes, and 
also those of the Magistrates at their General Quarter Sessions. 

" Fully sensible of the importance of Mr. Dudley's services on this 
and various other occasions, and also of the extreme hardship of his 
case, we feel it due to him thus to declare that any means which may 
be adopted for the alleviation of its pressure will prove highly acceptable 
and satisfactory to our county, which has for so many years been so 
essentially benefitted by his public exertions." 

IOI 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

After receiving the foregoing address Addington expressed 
himself as cordially disposed, and in the course of a debate 
in the House of Commons Sheridan took occasion to refer 
to the hardness of Dudley's case. Dudley himself bore his 
losses with fortitude, and made no attempt, as he might 
have been expected to do, to arouse public sympathy by 
journalistic means; but nothing was done by way of recom- 
pense until 1804, when he was presented to the out-of-the- 
way and comparatively poor rectory of Kilscoran, in county 
Wexford. He resided in Ireland with little intermission for 
about eight years, receiving during the course of that time, 
in addition to Kilscoran, the chancellorship of the diocese of 
Ferns and the rectory of Kilglass, in county Longford. In 
1812 he resigned these benefices, and left Ireland on being 
presented to the rectory of Willingham, in Cambridgeshire. 
Mr. Gamble had died in the previous year ; and he had pre- 
sented his brother-in-law, as arranged with the bishop, to 
the living of Bradwell. 

In 1813, in recognition of his many services to the public, 
including, of course, his journalistic support of the party of 
the Prince of Wales, Dudley was created a baronet. In 
1816, though over seventy years of age, he showed something 
of his old energy in the suppression of the nots which then 
occurred in the eastern counties. Horses, barns, and corn- 
stacks had been set on fire, and cattle, corn, and instruments 
of husbandry destroyed, by the rioters in various parts of 
Norfolk, Suffolk, Huntingdon, and Cambridge ; but on 
May 23rd the main body of the insurgents were defeated 
near Ely by the exertions of Dudley and another clerical 
magistrate, aided by a troop of yeomanry, a small detach- 
ment of dragoons, and a few of the disbanded militia. The 
rioters fired on the troops and magistrates from barricaded 
houses, but they were soon driven out and put to flight, one 
hundred or more being taken prisoners. When the assizes 
met in June the grand jury voted their unanimous thanks to 
these magistrates for their spirited, prudent, and energetic 

102 



SIR HENRY BATE-DUDLEY, BART. 

conduct ; and in the following month the justices resolved 
to present Dudley with a piece of plate to show their appre- 
ciation of his services. The grand jury also recommended 
that the " excellent " sermon which Dudley preached before 
the judges of assize in Ely Cathedral should be printed. 
This was a pity, because, however able his magisterial and 
military tactics may have been, the printed pamphlet obliges 
us to say that his preaching was of very inferior quality. 
He was made a prebend of Ely in 1817, however, and con- 
tinued to reside there — though it is to be hoped he did not 
often preach — until within a few months of his death. In 
later years his financial position appears to have become less 
satisfactory, and after parting with certain other property in 
Essex he was obliged in 1819 to dispose of the advowson of 
Bradwell, which had cost him so much both in trouble and 
in money. The purchaser was lucky, for the very day after it 
was sold Dudley's brother-in-law, the incumbent, was seized 
with a sudden illness and died. Dudley himself survived 
until February, 1824, when, after a short illness, he expired 
at Cheltenham, in his seventy-ninth year. By a strange 
coincidence his sister-in-law, " Mrs. Hartley," the heroine of 
the Vauxhall affray, died at Woolwich on the same day. 
He had no issue, and at his death the baronetcy became 
extinct. 

In private life Dudley was social and hospitable, and both 
he and his wife were noted for their charitable benevolence. 
He was possessed of some artistic sensibility, for he was one 
of the earliest of the admirers both of Mrs. Siddons and of 
Mrs. Jordan ; he was a patron of Gainsborough ; and the 
discoverer of Shield, the composer. He must be admitted 
to have had some mind as well as a superabundance of 
muscle. He achieved extraordinary success as a journalist. 
And perhaps what he did for the material well-being of his 
parishioners at Bradwell may be considered to atone in some 
degree for his deficiency in more spiritual ministrations. 
But, after all, one suspects that he missed his vocation. His 

103 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

dealings with poachers, and smugglers, and rioters in Essex, 
his plans for the protection of the sea coast (which an 
astonished general entrusted with that business declared that 
he would be entirely guided by), together with his character- 
istic qualities both of body and of mind, all tend to confirm 
the judgment of certain of his friends that in the army he 
must inevitably have risen to great distinction. He may be 
cited as a capital instance of the square peg in the round 
hole, for few will doubt that the " fighting parson " ought to 
have been a soldier. 



104 




Andrew Robinson Bowes. 

From an engraving. 



Ill 



A HUNTED HEIRESS— THE COUNTESS 
OF STRATHMORE 



Ill 



A HUNTED HEIRESS— MARY ELEANOR, 
COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

In the year 1812, or thereabout, Dr. Jesse Foot, a London 
surgeon, whose extensive practice and many medical publica- 
tions had made him no inconsiderable rival of hiscontemporary 
the great John Hunter, determined to put upon record for 
the benefit of posterity some particulars of the lives of two of 
his patients then recently deceased. Dr. Foot maintained 
the theory that every piece of biography should have a moral 
aim ; but he elected to deal with the lives of the Countess of 
Strathmore and Mr. Bowes, not because these were excep- 
tionally estimable persons, but, on the contrary, because, 
although " situated on the summit of fortune " and blessed 
with all the advantages that birth, education, and wealth 
could confer, they had made shipwreck of their lives, and, in 
his opinion, might well stand as a lesson and a warning to 
future generations. His two patients were undoubtedly 
persons of very peculiar temperaments, and he sets out by 
saying that — 

" Neither of them received one single check from any compunctious 
visitings of nature ; neither of them had disciplined their minds by the 
strict observance of any rule of right ; both of them appeared as if they 
had been taken from a land not yet in a state of civilisation, and dropped 
by accident where they have been found." 

But the good doctor's psychology was wholly unequal to the 
task which he proposed to himself; and instead of making 
an analysis of the peculiar temperaments of these patients, 
or inquiring how they came to possess such temperaments, 

107 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

or giving any indication, such as his exordium seemed to 
promise, of the means by which future generations might 
ensure better temperaments, he contented himself with a bare 
recital of biographical facts, interspersed with passages of 
vigorous and warrantable, but altogether unilluminating, 
denunciation. However, he had a very interesting, if also 
very painful, story to tell ; and he was otherwise well enough 
equipped for the purpose, having during a professional 
attendance of over thirty years acquired a good deal of first- 
hand and intimate knowledge of the parties, and having also, 
after their death, become possessed of a number of their 
letters. If Dr. Foot's story were uncorroborated, he might 
have been suspected of gross exaggeration ; but many of the 
most astonishing particulars in the following narrative have 
been taken, not from his book, but from the shorthand 
reports of the various trials in which his two unhappy 
patients became involved. Readers of the dramatic litera- 
ture of the Georgian era have probably sometimes wondered 
whether such brutal men and such silly women as are therein 
represented could ever have had any existence except upon 
the stage. A perusal of the following pages will make it 
clear that some real specimens were to be found in the seats of 
the country gentry and in the mansions of Grosvenor Square. 
Mary Eleanor Bowes was the only child and sole heiress 
of George Bowes, M.P., of Streatlam Castle and Gibside, 
county Durham. He was a man of great wealth, who, in 
addition to extensive landed estates, possessed a large interest 
in several coal mines. The ancient lordship of Streatlam, 
neighboured on east, west, and north by the estates and 
castles of the Nevilles and the Beauchamps, was one of the 
most considerable seats in the county. Gibside as it then 
was we get some notion of from the correspondence of Mrs. 
Elizabeth Montagu. In 1753, four years after Mary Eleanor 
was born, Mr. Montagu, who was then on a visit there, told 
his wife that, although all the gentlemen of the county were 
emulously planting and adorning their seats, nothing came 

108 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

up to the magnificence of what was being done by Mr. 
Bowes. The house itself was an indifferent one, but he had 
added to it a great " Gothic " banqueting room, wherein he 
gave splendid concerts, at which famous Italian and other 
singers were brought down to perform. And he was then 
building in his grounds a column 140 feet high, for what purpose 
save ostentation Mr. Montagu does not say, but only that it 
promised to be the largest ever erected by a subject in the 
kingdom and would only be eclipsed by the Monument in 
London. The house stood in the midst of a great wood of 
about 400 acres, through which there were many noble 
walks and rides, interspersed with fine lawns ; and a rough 
river ran through the domain, having high rocks on either 
bank, making altogether a highly beautiful and romantic 
scene. George Bowes died in September, 1760 ; and Mrs. 
Montagu wrote to a correspondent saying that her husband 
had gone to attend the funeral obsequies, which, according 
to the custom of the county, were to be very pompous. All 
the gentlemen of Northumberland and Durham were to be 
present, and she supposed there would be three or four 
hundred coaches. A fortnight or so after this event we get 
our first glimpse of Mary Eleanor, who was then eleven years 
of age, and who apparently had not created a very favour- 
able impression on some of her father's friends, for we find 
Lord Lyttelton writing to Mrs. Montagu : — 

" As his vanity descends with his estate to his daughter, I don't wish 
to see her my daughter-in-law, though she would make my son one of 
the richest, and consequently, in our present ideas of greatness, one of 
the great peers of the realm. But she will probably be the prize 
of some needy Duke, who will want her estate to repair the dissipations 
of Newmarket and Arthur's, or, if she marries for love, of some ensign 
of the Guards, or smart militia captain." 

The " good " Lord Lyttelton certainly proved to be some- 
thing of a prophet, for the young lady fell a prize, in the first 
place, to a needy peer, and, in the second place, to a smart 
half-pay army officer. The precious son for whom he 

109 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

thought she would be such a bad bargain became notorious 
as "the bad Lord Lyttelton " ; and whether he could have 
been any worse if he had married her, or whether she could 
have had a more unhappy lot if united to him, are questions 
on which the reader may be left to speculate if he happens to 
be that way disposed. 

According to Mary Eleanor's own account, her father, 
who was uncommonly handsome, and uncommonly idle, and 
a great rake, in his youth, became as he grew older uncom- 
monly pious. He endeavoured to train her, she says, in such 
a way that she might turn out as accomplished at the age of 
thirteen as his first and favourite wife had been at that age. 
Amongst other things, he trained her to make speeches 
before company, and to learn by heart and then declaim 
long passages out of Milton and — Ovid's " Metamorphoses." 
But, she assures us, although she read the Bible as well 
as Milton, the care with which she was instructed in the 
classical mythology made her somewhat doubtful whether 
she ought to profess Christianity or paganism ! Whatever 
her accomplishments may have been, she was, naturally 
enough, much sought after by heiress-hunters, titled and 
otherwise ; and, naturally enough, she flirted with a good 
many of them for a time without committing herself. One 
night at Almack's, for example, there was a quarrel, which 
set the whole room in an uproar and nearly ended in a 
duel, between Lord Mountstuart and a Mr. Chaloner, over a 
dispute as to which of them should sic next her at supper, 
when the young lady innocently declared that she had not 
given any encouragement to either of them. But she was 
too great a prize to remain uncaptured for long ; and before 
she had completed her eighteenth year she accepted the 
addresses of John Lyon, ninth Earl of Strathmore. Her 
mother objected to her choice; but nevertheless on Feb- 
ruary 24th, 1767, they were married from her country house 
at Paul's Walden, in Hertfordshire, and a fortnight later went 
off to spend their honeymoon at Gibside. 

no 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

John, Earl of Strathmore, a Scotchman, then thirty years 
of age, was reputed to be a good friend and a good bottle 
companion, but he can scarcely have been altogether an 
appropriate husband for the flighty and eccentric young 
woman he had married. He had no controlling influence 
over her, and he had no sympathy with the literary and 
scientific hobbies to which she was devoted. He made no 
complaints about her filling the house with flatterers and 
pedants and what Foot describes as "learned domestics." 
With him, the property was evidently the main thing ; and 
having added the name of Bowes to his own surname, in 
recognition of the financial benefits he had received, he 
seems to have gone quietly his own way and left his wife to 
go hers. Of course she became surrounded by designing 
people, who called her " the patroness of all the arts," and 
egged her on from one extravagant hobby to another, out of 
which they found their own advantage. Foot says that she 
had a really considerable knowledge of botany, though she 
adopted a very extravagant way of showing it, for she 
purchased a fine old mansion, with extensive walled-in 
gardens, at Upper Chelsea, and there built a series of costly 
and elaborate hothouses and conservatories for the 
preservation and cultivation of exotic plants, which her 
agents procured, at great expense, from every available 
quarter of the globe. She had some acquaintance with 
several languages, and she believed herself to have great 
literary faculty, if not, indeed, poetic genius. What her 
faculty amounted to may be estimated from the ambitious 
five-act tragedy, in blank verse (very blank verse), entitled 
" The Siege of Jerusalem," which she had printed for private 
distribution in 1774. It is very poor stuff indeed, without a 
single image or the semblance of a thought in it from 
beginning to end ; and the feeble story is told in even feebler 
verse, whose halting lines, some too long and some too short, 
it is impossible to scan. Many young persons, both before 
and since, believing themselves to be literary geniuses, have 

in 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

proved the contrary by producing equally worthless composi- 
tions. Of course, had she lived in our twentieth century, her 
story would have been written in prose instead of in verse, 
and, by lavish advertisement of it as "the Countess of 
Strathmore's great novel," might have been boomed into the 
success of a season. But these halcyon days were yet to 
come. 

There were five children of the marriage, two daughters 
and three sons; but poor Lord Strathmore, whose health 
was never very robust, broke down altogether in 1775, and 
when the winter came on was ordered off to the milder 
climate of Lisbon, where he died of consumption on 
March 7th, 1776. It might have been thought that, as Lady 
Strathmore did not accompany her husband, she had 
remained behind to look after her children ; but although she 
had an inordinate affection for cats and dogs, her children 
seem to have received very little of her care, and for her 
eldest son in particular she appears to have conceived an 
unnatural dislike. As soon as Lord Strathmore was dead 
she began to live the life of a merry widow, so that her own 
as well as her husband's relatives were shocked and held 
aloof from her. Before many months had elapsed there was 
talk of her marrying again ; and it was currently reported 
that she had received the addresses of a Mr. George Gray, 
an Anglo-Indian, forty years of age or thereabout, who had 
served under Clive in no very high capacity, but who had 
returned home with a large fortune and set about purchas- 
ing land in Scotland by way of becoming a pillar of the 
British Constitution. Gray visited her constantly, and they 
went about openly together in such a fashion as provided 
delectable journalistic material for Parson Bate's Morning 
Post, wherein appeared a series of paragraphs and letters 
concerning "the Countess of Grosvenor Square," alluding 
to her cold indifference to her late husband during the days 
of his sickness, suggesting that, instead of indulging in 
indecent levity, she would be better employed in her closet 

112 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

"perusing the letters she had received from her fond and 
doating noble lord, or in visiting her eldest son, whom she had 
forsaken," with other reflections on her character and 
conduct. Her late husband's relatives seem to have been 
rather pleased than otherwise with these attacks in the 
Morning Post, imagining that they might perhaps put a stop to 
her marriage, which they strongly opposed in the interest 
of her children ; at any rate, they did nothing to stop the 
libels. But just as the marriage appeared to be a foregone 
conclusion another candidate appeared on the scene. Of 
him it will be necessary to say a few introductory words. 

Andrew Robinson Stoney, a half-pay lieutenant, thirty 
years of age, was a cadet of a good old English family which 
had been settled in county Tipperary for near a hundred years, 
where they possessed considerable property. When his 
regiment was disbanded, he boasted of being the youngest 
lieutenant of foot who had ever been placed upon half-pay. 
At the age of twenty-two he had managed to captivate and 
marry Hannah, sole daughter and heiress of William Newton, 
of Newcastle-on-Tyne, a young lady who possessed a fortune 
of £30,000. Stoney was evidently a man of insinuating 
address, although, judging by Foot's description of him, he 
cannot have had a very captivating appearance. 

" His height was more than five feet ten ; his eyes were bright and 
small ; he had a perfect command over them ; his brows were low, 
large, and sandy ; his hair light, and his complexion muddy ; his smile 
was agreeable ; his wit ready, — but he was always the first to laugh at 
what he said, which forced others to laugh also. His conversation was 
shallow, his education was bare ; and his utterance was in a low tone 
and lisping. There was something uncommon in the connection of his 
nose with his upper lip ; he could never talk without the nose, which 
was long and curved downwards, being also moved ridiculously with 
the upper lip." 

Hannah Newton is described as short, dark, and " not 
handsome " ; but she was a good-natured young lady — and 
she possessed £30,000. After his marriage Stoney lived 
with her at Cold Pig Hill, the seat of her ancestors. Greatly 
N.D. 113 1 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

to his disappointment, his wife brought no children into the 
world alive. A correspondent who lived in the neighbour- 
hood, and knew him well, wrote to Foot saying that on one 
occasion Stoney caused the bell of the parish church to be 
tolled for a child that was still-born, because, if he could have 
proved it to have lived, he would have acquired a life estate 
in his wife's property. But the mere tolling of the bell was 
no proof, and apparently he had no other. On several 
occasions he advertised the timber on his wife's estates for 
sale, but the next week's newspaper always contained an 
advertisement of forbiddance on the part of certain persons 
who laid claim to the estate as next heirs ; and he was 
frustrated in that scheme also. In consequence of these 
disappointments, he behaved to his wife like a savage. Once 
at a public assembly, in a violent fit of rage, he tumbled her 
down a whole flight of stairs. At another time, as it was 
currently reported in the neighbourhood, he kept her locked 
up in a bare room for three days, with no other clothing 
than her chemise, and fed her on nothing but one egg a day. 
Fortunately for herself, the unhappy lady did not survive this 
kind of treatment very long. After her death Stoney came 
to live in London, where he seems to have filled up his time 
with the usual routine of a " man of pleasure," which con- 
sisted in cock-fighting, horse-racing, gambling in the clubs of 
St. James's, and general dissoluteness. 

It is not probable that Lady Strathmore knew anything 
about Stoney's private history, and how he obtained an 
introduction to her does not appear. But having run down 
and captured already one only daughter and sole heiress, 
he was not the sort of man to lose his chance from want of 
audacity in joining in the pursuit of another. He was late 
in the field, for Gray had the start of him by about four 
months ; but the dull-witted nabob was no match for the 
cunning half-pay officer. Amongst the principal members 
of the Countess's household in Grosvenor Square were Miss 
Eliza Planta, her Ladyship's confidante, and the Rev. Henry 

114 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

Stephens, her domestic chaplain. Both these persons were 
won over to Stoney's interest, on the understanding appa- 
rently of payment by results. They insidiously influenced 
the Countess's mind in accordance with his promptings, 
and kept him regularly supplied with information which 
he was able to use for himself. For example, having dis- 
covered that the Countess was of a very superstitious 
turn of mind, he got Eliza Planta to arrange a visit to a 
certain fortune-teller; and, as he took care to prime the 
man beforehand very carefully, Lady Strathmore, greatly to 
her astonishment, was told, in the first place, many things 
which she thought nobody outside her own establishment 
could possibly know, and then informed oracularly, but 
unmistakably, that a certain contemplated marriage was 
fated never to take place, and that a better husband, whose 
description tallied with that of Stoney, was in store for her. 
Another of his stratagems was to write a letter to himself, 
and get it copied out in a female handwriting, purporting to 
come from a lady in Durham, who, having heard of his devo- 
tion at the shrine of the Countess of Strathmore, denounced 
vengeance on him for his faithlessness to herself. The copy 
of this letter he caused to be forwarded to the Countess, 
having first sent it down to Durham in order that it might 
arrive with the Durham post-mark on it. A day or two 
later this was followed by another letter, in which the supposi- 
titious forsaken fair one expressed regret for having sent her 
Ladyship a copy of her letter to Stoney, as she had since 
been greatly relieved to hear that her Ladyship was likely to 
marry Mr. Gray ; and as she had received authentic 
information that Mr. Gray's addresses had received the 
support and concurrence of the late Lord Strathmore's 
friends and relations, she had no doubt that her Ladyship 
would soon marry him, and that the infatuated Stoney would 
then return to her. This was an extremely subtle stroke 
against Gray, for if anything could have induced the Countess 
to break her engagement with him or anybody else it would 

115 1 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

have been to find that they were in friendly association with 
the relatives of her late husband. She did not break with 
Gray, however, who continued to visit her as usual, and was 
quite unconscious that the artful lieutenant was slowly under- 
mining his position and fortifying his own. At Christmas, 
1776, the Countess went on a visit for a few days to her 
mother at Paul's Walden, from which place she sent Stoney 
a letter, informing him, amongst other things, that her 
chaplain, Mr. Stephens, had suddenly and unexpectedly 
married her confidante, Eliza. Planta. It seems probable 
that, for reasons best known to Eliza and himself, Stoney 
had been anxious to provide her with a husband with as little 
delay as possible ; and from his point of view there were two 
great advantages in allying her with Stephens : firstly, it 
would not withdraw her from the Countess's service ; and 
secondly, by making his two secret agents man and wife he 
relieved himself of the risk of their developing conflicting 
interests. How they were rewarded for their services will be 
seen presently. At the moment, of course, it was his cue 
to express the greatest surprise, and he replied to her 
letter in the following somewhat obscure and rhetorical 
strain : — 

" Woman's a riddle. I never felt the proverb more than upon the 
honour of receiving your Ladyship's letter. Eliza has indeed been 
playing within the curtain. Had I been worthy to have had confidence 
in this business, I certainly should have advised a double plot. Your 
journey would have prevented any inquiry after the intention of your 
fair friend, and I then should have had the happiness of making my 
consort not only the conversation of the day, but [? myself] the envy of 
the world. You draw a flattering picture of Mr. Stephens; was he 
anything but Eliza's husband, I should not be pleased with this trait ; but 
she deserves to be happy; and I hope he is everything that she can wish. 
I always thought that Eliza had a good heart ; but she has now con- 
vinced us that she has a great mind, above being trammelled by the 
opinions of guardians, relations, or pretended friends. A free choice is 
happiness ; and bliss is the offspring of the mind. Those only possess 
joy who think they have it ; and it signifies little whether we are happy 
by the forms our connections would prescribe to us or not. I believe 
it will not be denied that many are miserable under the opinion of the 

Il6 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

world of their being very much the contrary. You tell me that your good 
mother (Heaven bless her!) is well employed for an old lady; but by 
the soul of Angelica 1 you vow (and I know she was dear to you) that 
her pursuits do not at this time engage your attention. Now by the 
living sick Jacintha, 2 by everything I have to hope, I swear that I am 
highly interested in your present thoughts ; and were I Proteus I would 
instantly transform myself, to be happy that I was stroked and caressed, 
like them, by you ; and discovering the secret of your mind, I might 
experience what I hope Eliza will never be a stranger to, to be placed 
beyond the reach of further hope. I am all impatient to see your 
Ladyship ; I really cannot wait till Saturday. I must have five minutes' 
chat with you before that time. You will think me whimsical ; but 
upon Thursday next, at one o'clock, I shall be in the garden at Paul's 
Walden. There is a leaden statue, or there was formerly, and near 
that spot (for it lives in my remembrance) I shall wait ; and can I 
presume that you will condescend to know the place ? Eliza shall be 
our excuse for this innocent frolic ; and the civilities shall never be 
erased from the remembrance of your faithful " etc., etc. 

Stoney was evidently getting on apace. 

Meanwhile the Morning Post continued to print spicy and 
satirical paragraphs about " the Countess of Grosvenor 
Square," which at length so exasperated her Ladyship that 
in a passionate outburst she declared that " any man who 
was brave enough to call out the editor of that vile paper 
and avenge her reputation upon his body should have both 
her hand and her heart." Mr. Gray seems to have taken no 
notice ; but Stoney saw that this was his trump card. He 
accordingly challenged Parson Bate, and on January 12th, 
1777, they fought together in a room at the " Adelphi" tavern, 
first with pistols and then with swords, until the door was 
broken open and they were separated. Gray, who now saw 
that his rival had scored a point over him, and the late 
Lord Strathmore's relatives, who were no better pleased at 
the prospect of a marriage with Stoney than with the other 
man, tried to discredit the champion's reputation by alleging 
that there had been only a sham duel. But four credible 
witnesses contradicted this, — a Mr. Hull, who was in the 
tavern at the time, and three surgeons, Jesse Foot, John 
1 A deceased pet cat. 2 A living pet cat. 

117 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

Scott, M.D., and Sir Caesar Hawkins, who were all called in 
to attend to the wounds of the combatants. The morning after 
the duel Stoney's apartments at the St. James's Coffee-house 
were filled with visitors who came to congratulate him, but this 
would have proved scant consolation for the risk he had run 
had her Ladyship regarded his exploit in the matter-of-fact 
way that most other fine ladies of the period would have 
done. But he knew, and calculated upon, her extreme sensi- 
bility, and was probably not surprised at the romantic tone 
of the letter she sent him next morning, in which she 
declared that the wounds he had received externally had 
wounded her internally, with much more to the same effect. 
In the course of the morning she followed up her letter by a 
call, and Foot, who was present in attendance on the 
wounded swain, thus describes her appearance : — 

" The Countess at this time was scarcely thirty years of age : she 
possessed a very pleasing embonpoint ; her breast was uncommonly fine ; 
her stature was rather under the middle class ; her hair brown ; her 
eyes light, small, and she was near-sighted ; her face was round ; her 
neck and shoulders graceful ; her lower jaw rather underhanging, and 
which, whenever she was agitated, moved very uncommonly, as if con- 
vulsively, from side to side ; her fingers were small, and her hands 
were exceedingly delicate. She appeared in very fine health ; her 
complexion was particularly clear ; her dress displayed her person, it 
was elegant and loose." 

He adds that she glowed with all the warmth of a gay 
widow about to be married, and that she was extraordinarily 
elated in consequence of having had a duel fought on her 
account. The poor silly soul, he says, took home the sword 
that Stoney had used, and hung it up at the head of her bed. 
She also celebrated the occasion in verse, to the following 
effect : — 

" Unmov'd Maria saw the splendid suite 
Of rival captives sighing at her feet, 
Till in her cause his sword young Stoney drew, 
And to avenge, the gallant wooer flew ! 
Bravest among the brave I — and first to prove 
By death ! or conquest I who best knew to love ! 

118 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

But pale and faint the wounded lover lies, 
While more than pity fills Maria's eyes ! 
In her soft breast, where passion long had strove, 
Resistless sorrow fix'd the reign of love ! 

' Dear youth,' she cries, ' we meet no more to part ! 

Then take thy honour's due — my bleeding heart ! ' " 

One can imagine the " dear youth's " long curved nose 
moving up and down with his lip as he read these pitiful 
lines, for to him their meaning was not so much that he 
had won the admiration of a sentimental young woman as 
that Gibside, and Streatlam Castle, and the coal mines, and 
the Chelsea hothouses, and other properties of hers were 
now to come into his possession. But being well aware of the 
fickleness as well as sensibility of his charmer's tempera- 
ment, he pressed matters forward with the utmost urgency, 
and before a week had elapsed they were married at St. 
James's Church. The morning after his marriage he held 
quite a levee at the St. James's Coffee-house. He was dressed 
for the occasion in a new suit of regimentals ; two of his 
near relations, General Robinson and General Armstrong, 
appeared likewise in full military uniform, as also did some 
of the relations of the Countess ; and the cards that were 
left by the numerous visitors, who came on foot, on horse- 
back, and in coaches, made an immense heap. But, says 
Foot, growing inordinately rhetorical, no bridesmaids graced 
the nuptials, Hymen's torch burned not clear, the perfume 
was not sweet-scented, the background was sombrous, and 
so forth, in a long string of incongruous metaphors intended 
to shadow forth the troubles that were to come. It is a 
highly significant fact that on the morning after the marriage 
the Rev. Henry Stephens, Eliza's husband, received the sum 
of £1,000, which Bowes generously paid him out of the 
Countess's money. 

Of course the bridegroom promptly took possession of his 
wife's house in Grosvenor Square and of all her movables. 
He then seems to have bethought himself that there was at 
least one person to whom he must make some show of 

119 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

apology for the indecent haste of his proceedings. He 
accordingly wrote a letter to Lady Strathmore's mother to 
excuse himself for having omitted the ceremony of asking her 
concurrence, in which he said : — 

" I wish to atone for that breach of duty, and to ask your pardon, 
under the promise of dedicating the remainder of my life to the honour 
and interest of your daughter and her family. My grateful heart will 
make me her faithful companion, and with unremitting attention I will 
consult her peace of mind and the advantage of her children." 

Like Lord Strathmore before him, Stoney changed his 
surname for that of his wife, and we must henceforth speak 
of him as Bowes. One of his earliest little attentions to the 
peace of mind of his wife was to change all her old servants 
for new ones of his own choosing and to get rid of the quasi- 
literary and scientific persons with whom she had delighted 
to surround herself. Then, after giving a few grand dinners 
to exhibit his newly acquired splendour, he sold the house in 
Grosvenor Square, and rented another in what was then the 
secluded neighbourhood of Hammersmith. 

He had been married but a very short time when he made 
a discovery that greatly astonished him. He found that 
before her marriage with him, and while she was contem- 
plating a marriage with Gray, she had, with Gray's 
concurrence, executed a deed to trustees whereby she vested 
in them for her sole use the whole of her estates* This 
would never do. What he had married her for was simply 
and solely in order that he might have the entire control of 
all her estates. As it happened, she, as well as he, wanted to 
raise a considerable sum of ready cash on the property, for, 
to say nothing of other immediate necessities, Mr. Gray 
alleged a contract of marriage with her Ladyship, and 
threatened a suit if he were not pecuniarily recompensed. 
She agreed therefore to the raising of a loan, and a deed 
was duly executed by the two of them conjointly whereby 
the rents of certain specified estates should be set apart to 
satisfy the necessary annuities. Out of the money so raised 

120 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

Gray was compensated with the sum of £12,000. But, of 
course, this did not satisfy Bowes, and on May 1st, 1777, less 
than four months after his marriage, he induced her to 
execute another deed revoking the ante-nuptial settlement, 
and vesting the whole of her estates in himself. What 
methods of persuasion he adopted will appear later in the 
story. As soon as this business was concluded they gave 
up the Hammersmith house, and went off to Gibside, where, 
in November of that year, a daughter was born. 

Bowes, now become a county magnate, aspired to a seat 
in Parliament, not, as may readily be imagined, from any 
public-spirited motive, but because he thought it would 
assist him in obtaining, what was then the object of his 
ambition, an Irish peerage. During his canvass he kept 
open house and gave good dinners at Gibside, although, as 
Foot notes, there was always a spice of meanness about his 
splendour. He failed at his first attempt, but a year or two 
later succeeded in becoming member for Newcastle. A 
number of letters to a friend in London, which somehow came 
into Foot's possession, show how he was occupied otherwise. 
Little more than a year after his marriage we find him 
negotiating to raise more money by insurances on the life 
of his wife, and also for the cutting down of the extensive 
and beautiful woods on the estate at Gibside. In November, 
1778, he writes : — 

" If you will be so obliging as to have my wood put into any of the 
papers, I am sure of fifty bidders. ... It has never been offered to 
sale, and I will venture to say such wood is not in England. . . . The 
Dock Company in this country has made me a great offer ; but I have 
been told the people in London can afford to give more. ... I 
am obliged to you for the trouble you have taken about the insurance, 
and beg you will send me a list of the few best brokers in London. I 
will see myself and them damned before I agree to the price you 

mention. D , when I was last in London, got me £3,000 much under 

that charge." 

A little later in the same month he writes from Cold 
Pig Hill, the old property of his first wife, about some 

121 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

expenditure that appeared necessary to further his candidature 
for a peerage. In December he says that he will not come to 
London, because he can live at half the expense at Gibside, 
and must first get some money in hand. In the following 
May he reports that although he has sold the Chelsea house, 
with all its conservatories, etc., he is still in want of ready 
money. In June he wants a bill held over for a short time, 
although it appears that he has recently been able to buy a 
racehorse, which has been doing well. In February, 1780, 
he declares that he will break with his present bankers as 
soon as it is safe for him to show his teeth, but at the 
moment he is being incessantly harassed by the mortgagees 
of his estates. He implores his friend to buy from him one 
estate, near Barnard Castle, which is entirely in his own 
disposal, has no encumbrance on it but a sum of £2,000, the 
interest of which has been duly paid, and is worth about 
£400 a year. At the same time he gives this friend the tip 
to bet on his horse " Icelander," and he adds that it will 
be equally safe to bet on its owner becoming member for 
Newcastle. As it happened, the tip was a good one, for his 
horse won the race, and he won his election. In August, 
1781, he writes that although Lady Strathmore is in perfect 
health, yet, as she is with child, he is determined to insure 
her life deeply, and would like £18,000 worth of policies with 
good names to them. Altogether he seems to have insured 
her for about £30,000. And so the letters go on, always 
showing him to be in difficulties and adopting all sorts of 
expedients for raising ready money. Notwithstanding that he 
was member for Newcastle, he was scarcely ever in London, 
making not even a pretence of attending to his parliamentary 
duties, and as soon as he found that the Government did not 
favour his pretensions to a peerage he devoted himself exclu- 
sively to other pursuits. 

One day in the autumn of 1783 Foot met him in Cockspur 
Street and accompanied him to a jeweller's, where he bought 
a number of trinkets to the value of £40. Shortly after this 

122 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

the surgeon went down to Paul's Walden to inoculate the 
Countess's latest baby. He found many people at dinner 
there, and amongst them a most beautiful young woman, a 
daughter of one of the farmers on the estate, who, he noticed, 
was wearing the trinkets that Bowes had bought a few days 
previously in Cockspur Street, Her mother and sisters came 
after dinner, and they all drank tea with the Countess. He 
had not seen Lady Strathmore for some time, and found her 
so strangely altered that he would have liked some private 
conversation with her, but no opportunity was afforded him. 

" She was pale and nervous, and her under-jaw constantly moved 
from side to side. If she said anything, she looked at him first. If she 
was asked to drink a glass of wine, she took his intelligence before she 
answered. She sat but a short time at dinner, and was then out of my 
sight." 

Bowes now rented another house, furnished, in Grosvenor 
Square, where he gave a few parliamentary dinners, " to some 
of the members of his acquaintance, for I will not call them 
friends," says Foot significantly. But he saw both that he 
had no chance of being returned again for Newcastle, and 
that the peerage game was up, wherefore, abandoning 
politics and ambition, he devoted his restless energies to 
worrying and harassing the relatives and guardians of his 
wife's children, partly perhaps as a vent for his evil temper, 
but partly also, without a doubt, to make money by getting 
the girls into his possession and disposing of them in 
matrimony. 

The late Lord Strathmore's two daughters were wards in 
Chancery ; and their guardians, who disapproved not only of 
Lady Strathmore's marriage, but of her conduct generally, 
wished to keep the children away from her influence as much 
as possible. They were allowed to visit her occasionally, but 
only on condition of returning home the same evening ; and 
for several years she seems to have troubled very little about 
them. In 1784 Lady Maria Jane, the elder daughter, was 
about sixteen years of age, and having left school, was living 

123 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

with her aunt, Lady A. S , in Harley Street. The younger 

daughter, Lady Anna Maria, was in a school not far off. On 
May 21st in that year the Countess addressed a letter, 
unmistakably dictated by Bowes, to the mistress of this 
school saying she was just about to make a visit to Bath 
and would send for Lady Anna Maria next morning, as she 
would like her daughter to spend a day with her before her 
departure. Next morning accordingly Lady Anna Maria 
was allowed to leave the school for Grosvenor Square in 
company with a Mr. and Mrs. Reynett, who had been sent 
to fetch her. Mr. Reynett was a clergyman, who had replaced 
the Rev. Henry Stephens as domestic chaplain, and now 
lived, together with his wife, in Bowes's house. But when 
night came, instead of bringing the child back to school, this 
worthy couple brought a letter to the schoolmistress and the 
information that Lady Strathmore and her daughter had left 
Grosvenor Square in a hackney coach, for what destination 
they could not tell. The letter, which was signed by the 
Countess and in her handwriting, set forth that, in accordance 
with Lady Anna Maria's affectionate and dutiful request that 
she might spend her holidays with her mother, Lady Strath- 
more had taken her into her own possession. She would not 
have done this, she added, before the end of the school 
term had she not feared that she would then he prevented, 
as she had been before, by the young lady's guardians, who 
had caused her much suffering by depriving her of the 
company of her children. 

On the same day the Countess addressed another letter 

(also, of course, at Bowes's dictation) to Lady A. S , 

requesting that Lady Maria Jane might come the following 
day to see her before she set out for Bath ; and next 
morning Lady Maria Jane was duly sent, accompanied by 

Mrs. O , a sister of Lady A. S 's late husband. 

They were shown into the drawing-room and received by 
Mrs. Reynett. As they came up to the house the young lady 
declared that she saw her sister's face at one of the windows. 

124 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

Consequently, when the Countess appeared, Mrs. O 



inquired whether Lady Anna Maria had come on a visit 
also, and was answered in the affirmative. After a short 
chat the mother took her daughter into another room, 
ostensibly to show her something of interest, leaving 

Mrs. O behind in the drawing-room with Mrs. Reynett 

and with a gentleman whose name does not appear, but 
who evidently was that friend to whom Bowes had addressed 
the letters about his money matters which have already been 
quoted from. When some considerable time had elapsed, 

Mrs. O rang the bell and desired a servant to acquaint 

his mistress that it was time for Lady Maria Jane and 
herself to go. He brought back word that the young lady 
would come immediately. After waiting a while, she rang 
again, sent the same message, and received the same 
answer. Then, after another interval, she desired Mrs. 
Reynett to go and fetch Lady Maria Jane to her immediately. 
Mrs. Reynett went out for the purpose, but presently came 

back saying she dare not go into the room. Mrs. O 

thereupon said she would go herself, and being directed to 
the Countess's dressing-room, found the door locked. She 
consequently returned to the drawing-room in great agitation, 
which was nowise lessened when a servant entered and 
delivered to her the following letter : — 

" Madam, — As you have accompanied Lady Maria upon the present 
as well as a former occasion, on both of which I strenuously requested 
to see my daughter by herself, I conclude that you have some written 
order from a majority of her guardians. If thus authorised, I shall not 
choose to interfere in regard to her returning with you to-day ; but if 
you cannot produce any such sanction, you will, I hope, excuse my 
detaining her till, by representing my case and laying my grievances 
before my Lord Chancellor, I shall be honoured with his Lordship's 
commands. 

" However inhuman may be the behaviour I have experienced from 
those who never paid the slightest attention to my feelings as a mother, 
and whose professed regard for my children ought to have taught them 
a very different lesson, yet I hope you will be so obliging as believe that 
nothing can be further from my wishes than to treat you with the most 

125 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

distant degree of impoliteness, especially in my own house ; but that 
goodness of heart which I have the pleasure to know you possess will, 
I doubt not, fully excuse the liberty I now take, and lead you to 
sympathise in the sufferings of a parent whose children have for many 
years been entirely excluded from her sight, an affliction which, though 
you have never been so unfortunate as to experience, yet you may easily 
conceive the severity of ; and from your own sensations upon former 
occasions will form a just idea how impossible it must be even to exist 
under such cruel and unnatural control. 
" I am, Madam, 

" Your most obedient and humble Servant, 

" M. E. Bowes Strathmore." 

As soon as Mrs. O had read this letter she called for 

her own servant, who attended her carriage at the door, and 
directed him to carry it to his master and bid him come 
to her in Grosvenor Square immediately. She then told 
Mrs. Reynett that she meant to stay there until her young 
charge was given up to her. Mrs. Reynett pretended to 
go in search of the young lady, but presently returned 
saying she could not find either her or Lady Strathmore. 
Mrs. O then went again to the Countess's dressing- 
room, the door of which proved this time to be unlocked ; 
but on her endeavouring to enter, it was shut and locked 
against her by some person on the inside. At the same 
moment she heard Lady Maria scream, whereupon she called 
out, " Maria, I will not quit this house until you come to 
me." Then, asking Mrs. Reynett for a chair, she planted it 
against the door, sat down, and declared that there she 
would remain. Her courage and determination were re- 
warded, for the gentleman who had been sitting with her and 
Mrs. Reynett in the drawing-room interfered in her behalf, 
and presently appeared leading the young lady by the hand. 
After thanking him warmly, they hastened out of the house. 
Lady Maria afterwards informed her friends that all the 
while she was detained both her mother and Mr. Bowes had 
been exhorting her by every inducement they could think of 
to withdraw herself from her guardians and reside with 
them. On the 26th of the month application was made by 

126 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

her guardians to the Lord Chancellor to have the person of 
Lady Anna Maria delivered over to them ; but they were 
too late. On the evening of the 22nd Bowes, who had 
made all necessary preparations in advance, had set out 
with the Countess and her daughter, not for Bath, but for 
Paris. 

He was always a good hand at Pecksniman letter-writing ; 
and the friend who, as we have seen, took a great deal of 
trouble to help him in his financial negotiations, was now 
induced to help him in the suit which was brought against 
him in the Court of Chancery. But in a letter which he 
wrote to this friend after he had been about three weeks in 
hiding on the Continent he came perilously near to giving 
himself away. 

" If I had wanted to petition the Chancellor " [he says] " on the late 
conduct of the guardians, I am perfectly well satisfied that the same 
diabolical and unfair artifices would have been successfully practised 
upon Lady Anna Maria that have deprived Lady Strathmore for ever, 
I believe, of the company of her eldest daughter. Besides, his Lordship 
has been applied to upon two former occasions without giving any 
redress; though no circumstances could be stronger than those brought 

against Mr. L . The other guardian I consider merely as a tool, 

and Mr. O the commander-in-chief. I am now extremely sorry 

that I did not turn Mrs. O out of the house, and retain Lady 

Maria. . . . 

" I am sure your kindness upon examination will do Lady Strathmore 
essential service ; but Reynett is a blundering poor fellow, that would 
do all in his power to serve us, but has no head. However, there is one 
good thing, which is that he has been always kept in the dark in every 
essential that concerned Lady Strathmore's children, and his wife 
equally so. It will therefore be prudent, lest they should be examined, 
for you to be as little communicative to them as possible ; for if they say 
anything, they will likely say too much. All the service they can do us 
will be merely to prove Lady Strathmore's state of health and mind." 

In a subsequent letter he said that, whatever the Chan- 
cellor might determine, he was " resolved to permit Lady 
Strathmore and her daughter to do exactly as their own 
wishes may happen to dictate," and expressed his belief that 
they wished to remain in " their present asylum." He 

127 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

seems to have persuaded Lady Strathmore's medical man, 
John Hunter, as well as many other people, that her Lady- 
ship's evident disorder, both of body and of mind, was entirely 
due to the suffering she underwent by being separated from her 
children. His counsel, John Scott (afterwards Lord 
Chancellor Eldon), argued to the same effect, with tears in 
his eyes, in court. And when the Lord Chancellor, unmoved 
by this pathetic appeal, ordered the young lady to be brought 
to England and delivered over to her guardians forthwith, 
Bowes seems to have so hypnotised his poor wife that when 
the friend already referred to came over to France to fetch 
the child back by order of the Chancellor she fainted when 
she saw him and complained of the barbarity of the 
proceeding. And yet all the while, as the whole town 
learned in rather dramatic fashion three months later, her 
disorder of body and mind was due to another cause 
altogether, and it was the dearest wish of her heart to be 
brought safely back to England. 

Writing to the Countess of Upper Ossory on February 5th, 
1785, Horace Walpole says in his characteristic style : — 

" The news of my coffee-house, since I began my letter, is that Lady 
Strathmore eloped last night, taking her two maids with her ; but no 
swain is talked of. The town they say is empty ; it certainly does not 
produce its usual complement of extravagances when one solitary 
elopement of a veteran madwoman is all that is at market." 

Two days later the empty town learned something more 
of the matter, for on the 7th Lady Strathmore exhibited 
articles of the peace against her husband in the Court of King's 
Bench for ill-treatment of her person, and immediately 
afterwards entered an action against him in the Ecclesias- 
tical Court for a divorce. How long she had had any such 
step in contemplation does not appear ; but on February 4th, 
when Bowes was out to dinner, the men-servants were got 
out of the way on some pretence or other ; the doors of some 
of the rooms were locked, so that it might not be found out 
immediately that she had fled ; and then, accompanied by 

128 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

her faithful maid, Mary Morgan, she stole out into Oxford 
Street, got into a hackney coach, and was driven off to the 
house of Mr. Shuter, a lawyer, in Cursitor Street, who at 
once took her case in hand, and found apartments for her, 
under the protection of the Court, in Dyer's Buildings. 
When she escaped she had not a shilling at her command, 
and she took with her nothing but the clothes she was 
wearing. Her family jewels were soon afterwards handed 
over by Bowes to the useful and obliging friend already 
mentioned, with the idea probably of raising money on 
them ; but the honest man deposited them in Child's Bank 
in her Ladyship's name, and they were consequently pre- 
served for the Strathmore family. Bowes was bound over 
in substantial bail for a year ; and being thus precluded from 
such interference with his wife as he would otherwise have 
attempted, had to content himself with taking a lodging in 
the same street to keep a watch over her movements. 

When the case came on in the Consistorial Court, not 
only was Bowes convicted of several adulteries, but the 
evidence of his barbarous cruelty also was overwhelming. It 
was shown that he had refused her proper clothing, left her 
without money to buy any little necessaries she might 
require, and refused to pay the bills of tradesmen who 
supplied goods to her without his order. She had often been 
without a shift or a pair of stockings fit to put on, had been 
seen going about in shabby and even ragged garments, and 
had sometimes been obliged to borrow articles of clothing 
from her own maid. He had often cursed her, pinched her, 
and kicked her. One day, merely because she had been in 
the garden at Paul's Walden without his leave, he had 
thrown a dish of hot potatoes in her face, then forced her to 
eat the potatoes, and afterwards thrown a glass of wine in 
her face, " to wash the dirt off." On another occasion he 
had held a knife to her throat, and threatened to cut it if she 
spoke another word. Mary Morgan, her maid, deposed that 
during the time they were in France with Lady Anna Maria, 

N.D. 129 K 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

instead of letting his wife and her daughter do exactly as they 
wished (which, it will be remembered, is what he had pro- 
tested to his friend at the time), his conduct to the Countess 
had been " one continued scene of abuse, insult, and 
cruelty," and that, after their return to England, he had 
burnt her face with a candle, thrust the quill of a pen into 
her tongue, thrown the fire-tongs at her, and beaten her with 
a stick. The Rev. Samuel Markham, chaplain to Bowes 
from May, 1778, to February, 1779 (this fine gentleman 
seems to have changed his chaplains as often as a modern 
fine lady changes her maids), deposed that the Countess 
behaved to her husband in a very dutiful and obedient 
manner, nay, as he thought, rather servilely than otherwise, 
but that Bowes was of a very savage disposition and put him- 
self into a furious passion on the most trivial occasions. Not 
only was he violent to the Countess, but the poor parson had 
had to give up his appointment on account of violence to 
himself. On February 25th, he deposed, Mr. Bowes, think- 
ing his chaplain had stayed too long in the parlour after 
dinner, not only abused him by calling him a villain and a 
rascal, but also struck him several hard blows on the face, 
head, side, and other parts of his body, and finished up by 
knocking him down. There was no defence worth consider- 
ing, and, of course, the Countess obtained judgment in her 
favour. Bowes had tried all he knew to delay the proceed- 
ings ; and now, in order to cause further delay, he appealed 
to the Arches Court of Canterbury. Before the appeal came 
on his bail expired, and his securities were discharged. Then 
he determined that he would take possession of Lady Strath- 
more by force and get her to sign a paper promising to drop 
all opposition to his appeal and to live with him again as 
his wife ; this, of course, merely that he might still retain 
full control of her fortune. All his plans at this time were 
laid over the bottle, for he sat up drinking hard every 
night ; and the result of his drunken inspiration must now 
be told. 

130 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

After the trial Lady Strathmore, considering herself quite 
secure, had removed from Dyer's Buildings to a house in 
Bloomsbury Square ; but before long she and her servants 
became alarmed by noticing several suspicious-looking 
persons lurking about the place, and they knew Bowes well 
enough to suspect that he was probably contemplating some 
nefarious design to her disadvantage. It turned out after- 
wards that, in addition to several of his own servants, a 
constable whom he had corrupted, and an unscrupulous 
attorney, Bowes had conspired with a " gentleman " named 
Peacock, a colliery agent, to capture Lady Strathmore and 
carry her off to one of his places in the north. When they 
were all subsequently tried for conspiracy, it was proved that 
Bowes, who assumed the name of Colonel Medison, and 
Peacock, who passed by the name of Johnson, took lodgings 
together in Norfolk Street, Strand, and that they were 
always going about town disguised and armed with pistols. 
Sometimes, in military dress, Bowes was Colonel Medison ; 
sometimes, differently attired, he was a justice of the peace ; 
sometimes, made up with a large wig and a pair of spectacles, 
he was a tottering old man ; and sometimes he assumed the 
dress and appearance of a sailor. Occasionally Bowes and 
Peacock would sit and wait in a coach with the blinds up in 
Bloomsbury Square. At other times he and Peacock in one 
coach, with his posse of servants, all armed, in another, 
drove about to Hyde Park Corner, or to Chelsea, or to any 
other neighbourhood where they imagined they might meet 
with Lady Strathmore. But her Ladyship had evidently 
become too suspicious ; and, in order to put her off her guard, 
Bowes, leaving his subordinates behind in London, rushed 
off to Durham. Arrived there, he got up a little dramatic 
scene, with the assistance of a servant and an accommodating 
surgeon, who, of course, were given some other explanation 
to account for the little play in which they consented to take 
part. Being out for a ride, he got off his horse at a quiet 
and convenient spot, and lay down in the road as though he 

131 k 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

had fallen. His servant immediately galloped off to the 
nearest house, and, assuming great agitation, explained that 
his master had had a nasty accident, had dislocated his 
shoulder and broken his leg, and three of his ribs perhaps 
also, as well as fractured his skull. Apparently by the 
merest coincidence, the accommodating surgeon happened to 
come riding by in the very nick of time, and, after bleeding 
the sufferer, ordered him to be very carefully removed to 
Streatlam Castle and kept quite quiet, for he was too 
dangerously ill to see anybody. Of course he took care that 
the news was not only circulated all over the county, but 
also carried up to London. Then slipping out unobserved, 
and effectually disguised, he posted off at full speed to rejoin 
his fellow-conspirators in Norfolk Street, Strand, and was 
actively prosecuting his nefarious scheme in person when 
everybody supposed him to be laid up in bed at Streatlam 
Castle. But he seemed to make no progress towards the 
accomplishment of his purpose until he conceived the 
brilliant idea of corrupting a constable named Lucas and 
getting him to insinuate himself into the confidence of the 
Countess. He got at the man through his wife. They were 
poor, and he was liberal of his money. He posed as an 
injured and outraged husband, and managed to secure the 
wife's sympathy. She said he was a most "charming man, 
and it was a great shame he should be so badly used. Why, 
when one of her children was ill he called to see it every day, 
and gave it the medicine with his own hands. He was as 
mild and meek as a lamb, as generous as a prince, and so 
forth. Then he promised to let Lucas have some houses, 
belonging to Lady Strathmore, at a peppercorn rent, and to 
get him a comfortable place in the Customs. By these 
means he induced the man to go to Lady Strathmore and, 
in his capacity of constable, warn her of the danger she was 
in from certain evilly-disposed persons who were lurking 
about. The bait took ; her Ladyship was very grateful ; 
and when Lucas offered his services to protect her whenever 

132 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

she went abroad, he was promptly engaged for the purpose. 
Bowes then instructed another of his accomplices to go 
before a justice of the peace and swear that he went in 
danger of his life from a servant of Lady Strathmore's, 
named Mary Morgan, from her footman, named Robert 
Crundel, and from her coachman, whose name was Lee, 
but who, as Bowes did not happen to know this, was 
described as one Jones. A warrant being granted for the 
arrest of these three persons, was, of course, handed over to 
Lucas, who employed three men to effect the arrests when- 
ever instructed to do so. 

On November ioth, 1786, Lucas went to Lady Strathmore's 
house to know if she were going out that day and required 
him to protect her. She told him she need not trouble him 
at that time, as Captain Farrer would accompany her and 
would be sufficient protection. This was all he wanted to 
know, and his plans were laid accordingly. When she left 
the house, accompanied by Captain Farrer and her maid, 
Mary Morgan, he and his myrmidons followed her carriage 
until it stopped at the shop of an ironmonger named Foster, 
in Oxford Street. As soon as the occupants of the carriage 
had entered the shop her coachman and footman were 
instantly arrested and hurried off to the magistrate who had 
issued the warrant. No one appeared against them, and they 
were at once discharged, but all that was wanted was to get 
them out of the way for a short time. Seeing the commo- 
tion and scenting danger, Lady Strathmore and Mary 
Morgan ran upstairs into a private room and locked them- 
selves in. After a few moments there was a knock at the 
door, and they heard the voice of Lucas, who said he had 
come to protect her Ladyship ; but as soon as he had obtained 
admittance he declared that he held a warrant for her Lady- 
ship's arrest, which he was bound to execute at his peril. 
At the same time he endeavoured to reassure her by saying 
that his instructions were to take her before Lord Mansfield, 
who would assuredly afford her protection against her enemies. 

133 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

He advised Mary Morgan to go away quietly, as there was 
a warrant out against her also ; and calling upon Captain 
Farrer to aid and assist him in the King's name, requested 
Lady Strathmore to re-enter her carriage. Rather bewildered 
by all this, Lady Strathmore asked if Captain Farrer might 
accompany her to Lord Mansfield's, and, this being agreed 
to, she re-entered her carriage, a strange coachman and foot- 
man mounted the box, and, followed by the rest of the 
confederates, they drove off at a rapid pace. Farrer does 
not seem to have realised that they were not travelling in the 
direction of Lord Mansfield's until, when they reached 
Highgate Hill, Mr. Bowes put in an appearance, requested 
him to alight, got in and seated himself beside Lady Strath- 
more, and shouted to the strange coachman to drive on with 
all speed. Then, of course, the rather stupid Captain 
hastened back to London and gave the alarm. 

An application was made in the King's Bench as soon as 
possible, and on the 13th two of Lord Mansfield's tipstaffs 
set off for the north to effect a rescue. But Bowes had three 
days' start of them, and he had probably counted on the almost 
hypnotic influence which he had previously exercised over 
his wife to enable him to accomplish his purpose before he 
could be overtaken. She screamed "Murder!" struggled, 
and broke the carriage windows, but without avail. They 
attracted much curious notice at several places on the road ; 
but nobody felt called upon to interfere, as Bowes declared 
she was a poor unhappy madwoman, whom it was unfortu- 
nately necessary to place under restraint. At Barnet they got 
into a four-horse post-chaise which there awaited them, and 
continued their journey with increased speed. About noon 
next day one of Bowes's servants rode up to the "Angel " inn 
at Doncaster, and ordered horses to be got ready instantly 
for his master's carriage. Half an hour later the carriage 
drove up, and while the horses were changing the landlord 
handed some cakes to Bowes, who said the lady wanted them. 
Then, as soon as the horses were put to, they flew on their 

134 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

way northward. At Branby Moor the lady was shown into 
a room for a short time, attended by a chambermaid, while 
Bowes stood sentry at the door. A similar halt was allowed 
her at Ferry Bridge, and at each place Bowes and his 
villainous-looking attendants gave out that she was an unfor- 
tunate mad lady. She related afterwards that as they drove 
along Bowes endeavoured to persuade her to sign a paper, 
which he had with him, in which she was made to promise 
to stop all proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Court and consent 
to live with him as his wife. When she refused, he struck 
her with his clenched fists, and presenting a loaded pistol at 
her head, threatened to take her life. When they arrived at 
Streatlam Castle, however, at midnight on November nth, 
she still remained firm in her refusal to sign. When he had 
got her into the castle and barricaded the entrance to prevent 
a rescue, he renewed his exhortations, and on her persistent 
refusal beat her violently. After that she saw no more 
of him for a whole day, and on his reappearance he looked 
and spoke more calmly ; but when he inquired whether she 
had thought better of it, and had now become reconciled to 
the idea of resuming a dutiful domestic life as his wife, she 
answered in the same terms as before, whereupon he flew 
into a more violent passion than ever, and pulling out his 
pistol, bade her say her last prayers, for if she did not 
instantly consent he would assuredly kill her. Then the 
poor miserable woman went down upon her knees, said her 
prayers, and called on him to fire ! 

Having thus failed to force her to sign or to resume 
cohabitation, and fearful of being arrested, Bowes determined 
to carry her abroad. But that was by no means so easy a 
business as he could have wished. Rumours of what was 
going on had got abroad, and the colliers of the county 
were assembling for a rescue. When the tipstaffs arrived 
they found a couple of hundred people or more surrounding 
the castle ; but they were refused admittance, and had to 
serve the writ of habeas corpus by pushing it under one of 

135 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

the doors. Although thus driven into a tight corner, Bowes 
would not give in. He dressed up two of his domestics to 
personate himself and the Countess, and ordered them to 
show themselves, as though engaged in amicable conversa- 
tion, at one of the upper windows. This ruse caused the 
people to disperse quietly to their homes, and enabled him 
to get away from Streatlam without observation. In the 
middle of the night he made Lady Strathmore get out of bed, 
and when she had put on some of her clothes he completed 
her attire with an old bonnet belonging to one of the servants, 
and a man's great-coat. Then, mounting her on horseback 
behind him, he rode off to the cottage of one of his not very 
reputable dependants, where he once more endeavoured, 
although again unavailingly, to procure her signature by 
threats and blows. At daybreak next morning he mounted 
her again behind him, and, after a terrible journey over dismal 
heaths and wild hills covered with snow, about four o'clock 
on the following morning they reached the house of Thomas 
Bowes, his attorney, at Darlington. While there, she was 
shut up in a dark room and threatened, while a red-hot poker 
was held to her breast, with a mad doctor and a strait waist- 
coat. But all threats were in vain, and next day he set out 
with her behind him on horseback once more. The whole 
county was now up after him, however, and escape was 
impossible, notwithstanding that he avoided all roads and 
took his famished and perishing captive across moors and 
ploughed fields and hedges and ditches. A constable of the 
parish of Neasham deposed that when he came up with 
Bowes, whose horse's bridle was being held by a country 
labourer, the prisoner had one pistol in his belt and another 
in his hand, which he presented and threatened to fire with. 
But the constable promptly knocked him off his horse with a 
stout cudgel, and perhaps gave him an additional blow or 
two to keep him quiet, for after he had been carried into an 
adjacent alehouse it was necessary to send for a surgeon to 
look to his wounds. Lady Strathmore, attended by her 

136 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

deliverers, then made the best of her way to London. When 
she called at the " Red Lion " at Barnet to change horses, the 
landlord said she was dressed " in a bonnet and an old hand- 
kerchief, like a woman that was sifting cinders in Gray's Inn 
Lane." But this, of course, was only a minor evil. The 
effect on her nervous system of the treatment she had received 
was never likely to be effaced, and the effect on her limbs 
of exposure to the bitter wintry weather was such that she 
was unable to stand on her feet for a month after. 

On November 24th, a fortnight after the abduction, appli- 
cation was made in court for an attachment against Bowes, 
which was immediately granted. His counsel applied for 
the matter to be held over till next term, proper bail being 
forthcoming, on the ground that when he was arrested 
Bowes was really bringing Lady Strathmore to London in 
accordance with the writ of habeas corpus ; but this was too 
impudent an assertion to obtain credence. On Monday, the 
27th, while at Barnet, on his way to London, Bowes sent a 
letter to Jesse Foot, his medical man, saying he was sorely 
in need of professional attention, and soon after the letter 
came the prisoner himself, looking as pale as ashes, his boots 
dirty, his shirt and cravat stained with blood, and his head 
bound up with a bloody handkerchief. He wanted Foot to 
go down to Westminster Hall and certify that he was too ill 
to be imprisoned. Foot agreed to do this provided another 
medical man would join him, but when another surgeon was 
sent for and had examined him they had to tell Bowes that 
he would have to do as best he could without such a certifi- 
cate. On the way to the court Bowes vomited twice in the 
coach, and Foot began to doubt whether, after all, he might 
not be suffering from a fractured skull, although there was 
no other symptom of it. He afterwards found out that while 
at Barnet the artful rascal had procured a dose of ipecacuanha, 
which he had swallowed after he got to London, so that his 
symptoms might look grave, excite sympathy, and save 
him from being committed to prison. But this trick failed. 

137 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

When he walked through Westminster Hall, bent almost 
double and supported by two men, he was saluted with 
hisses ; and when his counsel argued that there was no proper 
accommodation in the prison for a man so seriously ill as he 
evidently was, the marshal remarked in a loud and significant 
tone of voice that he could quite easily accommodate the 
gentleman, whereat everybody in court laughed loudly. 
He remained safely under lock and key therefore until, on 
May 30th in the following year, he and his accomplices were 
charged before Mr. Justice Buller and a special jury with 
" a conspiracy against the Right Hon. Mary Eleanor Bowes, 
commonly called Countess of Strathmore." The trial lasted 
from nine in the morning till half-past four in the afternoon, 
when, after a few minutes' consideration and without leaving 
the box, the jury brought in a verdict of guilty against all 
the prisoners. The sentences were of various degrees of 
severity, and the prisoners were committed to Newgate or 
to the King's Bench according to their status. Bowes was 
condemned to pay a fine of £300, to be imprisoned in the 
King's Bench for three years, and after that time to give 
security for his good behaviour for fourteen years, himself in 
£"10,000 and two sureties in £5,000 each. 

Of course when his appeal against the decree of divorce 
came on in the Court of Arches the decision was given against 
him. But what was of even more importance to him than 
this was the result of another suit which was instituted by 
the trustees of the Countess in the Common Pleas, for upon 
this depended whether at the end of his term of three years 
he should come out of prison a wealthy man or whether he 
should be entirely crushed. They moved to have set aside, 
on the ground that it had been obtained under duress, the deed 
which she had executed on May 1st, 1777, which revoked her 
ante-nuptial deed and vested all her estates in her husband. 
It was shown that this deed of revocation excluded the 
Countess from disposing of the most trifling part of her own 
property, that it did not even make provision for any children 

138 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

which she might have by Bowes, and that it was altogether 
such a deed as no friend or responsible adviser would have 
permitted her to sign ; and it was shown that this unreason- 
able deed had been extorted from her by cruelty. Much of 
the cruelty proved in the divorce case was inadmissible, as 
the evidence was restricted to ill-usage prior to the execution 
of the deed, which, as we have seen, was signed less than four 
months after the marriage ; but she was able to prove that 
from the very first her husband had deprived her of liberty, 
that the use of her carriage had been denied her unless with 
his express permission, that her own old servants had been 
discharged, and the new ones ordered not to obey her com- 
mands or even attend the ringing of her bell, that she durst 
not write a letter without his inspection nor look into one 
addressed to herself until he had previously perused it, that 
she was treated with foul language and often chastised with 
blows. Thus had the " dear youth " of her poem fulfilled 
the promise made to her mother that he would dedicate his 
life to Lady Strathmore's service. Needless to say, the deed 
of revocation was set aside, the ante-nuptial deed declared to 
be in operation, and Lady Strathmore consequently placed 
once again in possession of her own fortune. 

This gave Bowes his coup de grace, for it meant not only 
that he would no longer have the fingering of a penny of the 
Countess's money, but that he would be charged with all 
that he had drawn from her estates during the ten years that 
he had been in wrongful possession of them, and would con- 
sequently have to pay up this large sum before he could be 
liberated from his prison. At first he sank into extreme 
despondency, for he saw nothing but prison before him for 
the remainder of his life. As a matter of fact, he did remain 
in prison until his death, twenty -two years afterwards, passing 
from the state rooms which he occupied at first to the ordinary 
apartments within the walls, and then living for about the 
last twelve years " within the rules," as it was called, in St. 
George's Fields. After a while, however, he pulled himself 

139 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

together and determined to enjoy life in his own characteristic 
fashion so far as the restrictions of his domicile permitted. 
He had his half-pay, and, although it was encumbered with 
mortgages, he still retained his own estate of Benwell. He 
tried to become acquainted with everybody of importance or 
anybody he imagined might be made useful to him within 
the walls ; but Foot declares there were many prisoners who 
refused to associate with such a cruel scoundrel, although 
he held out the temptation of very good dinners. Whatever 
the cooking may have been, however, the dinners cannot 
have been otherwise very attractive, for we are informed 
that he played freakish tricks upon his guests and had an 
ingenious way of making the whole of his company drunk 
against their inclinations. He would tell them to help them- 
selves to spirits from the bottles on the table, and then 
himself officiously pour the diluting water into their glasses 
from a tea-kettle ; but he had instructed his servant to fill 
the kettle, not with plain water, but with a mixture of half 
water and half spirit, so that the more his guests insisted upon 
diluting their drink the more intoxicated they became. 

Not long after his committal to the King's Bench, Bowes 
desired Foot, who was continuously in professional attendance 

on him, to visit a young lady, Miss Polly S -j the daughter 

of a fellow-prisoner, at the lodgings of her mother in Lant 
Street. What was the object of this visit Foot does not 

say, but he tells us that Miss S was a very innocent and 

charming young lady, who had attracted Bowes's attention 
as she came to and fro on visits to her father, a gentleman 
of some landed property who had got himself into difficulties 
by an intemperate devotion to hunting. By paying attention 
and making promises to the father, and by flattery and 
presents to the girl herself, he at last induced her to take 
up her quarters with him. She little knew what that meant, 
for Foot assures us that Bowes kept her " literally a prisoner 
in his house from the year 1787 to the day of his death." 
She had five children by him ; and although the surgeon 

140 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

was sometimes called in on occasions of illness, he never had 
any opportunity of speaking a word in private with the poor 
woman, as Bowes was always present and always hurried 
him away as quickly as possible. 

In 1793 he caused to be printed, and published at the 
price of half a crown, a little book of 100 pages, entitled 
" The Confessions of the Countess of Strathmore, written 
by herself, carefully copied from the original lodged in 
Doctors' Commons." These " confessions " doubtless con- 
tain some truth as well as a good deal of falsehood of his 
suggestion. The scoundrel had extorted them from his wife 
about a year after their marriage, and they had constituted 
almost his only defence in the divorce proceedings ten 
years afterwards, when, of course, they were of no use to 
him, because, apart from all question of how they had been 
obtained, they related only to indiscretions that had 
admittedly taken place before he married her. Their publi- 
cation at this time was probably due partly to spite, and 
partly to his belief that they would aid him in certain legal 
proceedings which he had in contemplation. But it was 
not until 1797 that he commenced a suit in Chancery, claim- 
ing the surplus rents of those estates which, as we have 
seen, had been set aside by a deed executed by the Countess 
and himself conjointly soon after their marriage in order to 
raise money for the purpose of squaring Mr. Gray and pro- 
viding for other immediate necessities. Lady Strathmore 
negligently put in no answer to this, so that he obtained 
judgment by default ; and in great glee he confidently put in 
his application to be put in possession of something like 
£60,000. But before he could get the money paid to him 
Lady Strathmore died. She died at Christchurch, Hants, 
on April 28th, 1800, and her body was brought up to 
London to be buried in Westminster Abbey, " arrayed in 
a superb bridal dress." That, however, is by the way. 
The point that concerned him was that her executors and 
her son, Lord Strathmore, opposed his application, and he 

141 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

was defeated. About the same time, however, fortune 
favoured him in two lesser ways. He received an accession 
to his income in the shape of a freehold in Ireland worth 
about £300 a year, and he was permitted to move out of the 
walls of the prison to a house in London Road, St. George's 
Fields, " within the rules," whither he betook himself in 

company with Miss Polly S and the five children. He 

was always prosecuting, or threatening to prosecute, a suit 
of some kind ; and, with his usual cunning, he often managed 
to obtain money or credit on the strength of the probable 
results. One of his little tricks was to employ a copyist to 
write letters to or about himself. One purporting to be 
from Lord Strathmore, and offering him favourable terms of 
compromise, he carried about in his pocket, and occasionally 
produced by way of proof that he would soon be in posses- 
sion of a considerable sum of money. Any distant creditor 
who proved unduly troublesome would be apt to receive a 
letter, apparently coming from some friend of Bowes, con- 
taining the information that that harassed and penniless 
gentleman had shot himself, and that the writer had just 
been to see his body weltering in his blood. 

In June, 1807, he brought the last of his actions, which is 
described as a suit to ascertain whether the deed of 
revocation set aside in 1788 had really bee"n obtained by 
duress, as represented by Lady Strathmore. Of course he 
was not successful ; but it probably cost him nothing, and 
perhaps even enabled him to raise a little money by a side 
wind during the proceedings. As he grew older his habits 
grew baser. Foot tells us that during the last eight years 

of his life " he scarcely ever saw or spoke to Miss S ," 

and that he " allowed her but one meal a day." He kept 
no servant, and was so niggardly that there was no broom 
or brush in the house, " so that his daughters had to go 
down on their knees and gather up the dust with their 
hands." He used to read a newspaper in the tavern, but 
he never possessed a book, and Foot was of opinion that he 

142 



MARY ELEANOR, COUNTESS OF STRATHMORE 

had never read one of any kind from the hour he went into 
prison to the very last. He survived to the age of sixty- 
three, and died on January 16th, 1810. 

It is strange that Bowes, by his Pecksnifnan hypocrisy, 
should have been able to impose himself on a good many 
people for some years as a man of respectability and honour. 
He was not merely an unscrupulous fortune-hunter : he 
considered all females as natural game, and hunted them 
down as so many fertz natures. He did not know what friend- 
ship meant, and those who were for a time deceived by his 
superficial agreeableness and plausibility invariably suffered 
for it afterwards. Not only were his accomplices abandoned 
to their fate without his lifting a finger to help them, 
Peacock being left to go into bankruptcy and his valet 
Prevost to shift as best he could with a broken collar-bone 
and a blasted character, but even the one friend who had 
been so ready to help him in financial and legal matters was 
treated by him with contumely as soon as it suited his 
purpose to do so. This gentleman's case was a peculiarly 
hard one, for although he had prevented the abduction of 
Lady Maria Jane, preserved the family jewels for the 
Strathmore family, and made two journeys to France at his 
own cost in order to get Lady Anna Maria restored to her 
guardians, he was not only regarded by Bowes as an enemy, 
but at the same time suspected and censured by the other 
parties as one of his secret accomplices, thus showing, as 
Foot philosophically remarks, that " reputations may be 
likened to the positive and negative powers of electricity, 
where the best-disposed man may lose his character by too 
near an approximation to a bad one." It is not probable 
that there was ever any inscription to the memory of 
Andrew Robinson Bowes in the vault of St. George's Church, 
in the Borough, where he was buried ; otherwise the 
following words, in which his character was summed up by 
the medical man who had attended him for thirty-three 
years, might have provided an appropriate epitaph : " He 

143 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

was cowardly, insidious, hypocritical, tyrannic, mean, violent, 
selfish, deceitful, jealous, revengeful, inhuman, and savage, 
without a single countervailing quality." But it is a very 
quaint notion of the good doctor's that the mere recital of 
such a person's villainies should have a moral effect upon 
future generations. 



144 




, Bampfyi.uk Moore Carew. 

Front an engraving. 



IV 



A PROFESSIONAL BEGGAR— BAMPFYLDE- 
MOORE CAREW 



N.D. 



IV 

A PROFESSIONAL BEGGAR— BAMPFYLDE- 
MOORE CAREW 

During the greater part of the Georgian era England 
swarmed with beggars; and although from time to time 
stringent Acts of Parliament were passed with the object of 
putting an end to the evil, the administration of such laws 
was culpably lax, and in many districts mendicancy met with 
little or no opposition. A statute of 1713 (13 Anne, c. 26), 
most of the provisions of which were re-enacted during the 
course of the two succeeding reigns, enumerates as rogues 
and vagabonds — 

" all persons pretending themselves to be Patent Gatherers, or 
collectors for prisons, gaols, or hospitals, and wandring abroad for that 
purpose, all Fencers, Bearwards, Common Players of Interludes, 
Minstrels, Jugglers, all persons pretending to be Gipsies, or wandring 
in the habit of Counterfeit Egyptians, or pretending to have skill in 
Physiognomy, Palmistry, or like crafty science, or pretending to tell 
fortunes, or like phantastical imaginations, or using any subtile craft or 
unlawful games or plays, all persons able in body, who run away and 
leave their wives or children to the parish, and not having wherewith 
otherwise to maintain themselves, useloytring, and refuse to work for the 
usual or common wages, and all other idle persons wandring abroad and 
begging." 

Pedlars and tinkers, it will be observed, were not reckoned 
as vagabonds. And certain persons were actually privileged 
to beg, including soldiers and " mariners or seafaring men," 
who received a licence or testimonial from a justice of the 
peace setting forth the place from which they came and the 
place to which they were to go. But any other person 
found wandering and begging without a licence might 
be publicly whipped and then sent to the house of correction ; 

147 L2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

and, under certain conditions, vagrants might be handed 
over as servants or apprentices for seven years to anybody 
willing to receive them either in Great Britain or in the 
plantations beyond the seas. As a matter of fact, whole 
cargoes of such poor wretches were annually shipped off and 
sold to the planters of what were then the British colonies in 
America. Such being the condition of things, mendicancy, 
it might be thought, was hardly the profession that would 
have insuperable attractions for a young gentleman of good 
family in Devonshire. Yet so it was; for Bampfylde-Moore 
Carew, a scion of one of the oldest and most respectable 
families in the west of England, followed this occupation for 
forty years or more, in spite of all sorts of inducements that 
were held out to tempt him into a more reputable way of 
life ; and during the whole of that time he managed to keep 
the people of the western counties in a state of amused 
wonderment by his ingenious exploits, going about in a 
variety of disguises, now as a shipwrecked mariner or a 
flooded-out farmer or a burnt-out tradesman, now as a dis- 
tressed Quaker or a non-juring clergyman, one day posing 
as a miserable cripple, another day as a wandering lunatic, 
and sometimes even changing his attire for that of the other 
sex and passing himself off for a tottering old woman. 

In i745> when he was fifty-two years of age and had been 
a celebrated character in his native Devon and the adjacent 
counties for thirty years or more, there appeared at Exeter a 
little quarto volume of 152 pages professing to contain the 
" Life and Adventures " of this noted stroller and dog- 
stealer " as related by himself during his passage to the 
Plantations in America." The anonymous editor of this 
little book makes no bones about calling Carew a rogue and 
impostor, and hints that the following narrative of his 
exploits was drawn from him partly by vanity and partly by 
want of money ; yet although the credibility of the stories 
might, therefore, be thought liable to grave suspicion, many 
of them, he says, must be so well known to everybody in 

148 



BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW 

that part of the country that, as the public can attest the 
accuracy of these, they will not, perhaps, be much inclined 
to question the veracity of the remainder. He would have 
had no hand in the publication, he declares, but for his belief 
that the book might be of use in guarding well-meaning 
persons against similar impositions in the future ; and, quite in 
the style of a member of the yet unborn Charity Organisation 
Society, he takes up his parable against indiscriminate alms- 
giving as being mischievous and altogether undeserving of 
the name of charity. A few years after the appearance of 
this little book at Exeter a somewhat similar volume, 
entitled " An Apology for the Life of Mr. Bampfylde-Moore 
Carew," etc., was issued in London, being printed for R. 
Goadby and W. Owen, bookseller at Temple Bar. This 
" Apology " appears to have been a great success, for numerous 
editions of it, with additional stories and other embellish- 
ments, appeared during the latter half of the eighteenth 
century. It is not, as bibliographers have too hastily assumed, 
a mere reprint of the Exeter volume, for, besides omitting 
many stories told in the earlier book and containing much 
that the other does not, the spirit and tone of the relation 
are altogether different. Timperley's " Dictionary of 
Printers " states that it was written by Robert Goadby, 
and a Tiverton correspondent of Notes and Queries in 
1857 wrote to say he had heard that it was written by 
Mrs. Goadby from the relation of B. M. Carew himself. 
On the face of it, this seems likely enough. We may be 
certain that the " King of the Mumpers," having been 
persuaded in a moment of temporary depression and impe- 
cuniosity to part with a recital of some of his curious 
professional exploits, would be far from satisfied, especially 
as he had then no intention of retiring from business, to find 
that recital accompanied by disparaging comments and 
warnings to the charitable against being similarly imposed 
upon in future. But if he got Robert Goadby or his wife to 
put together this little book by way of counterblast to the 

149 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

Exeter volume, his selection of a " histriographer " was an 
unfortunate one, for the " Apology," as an apology, is very 
poor, consisting mainly in gushing eulogies of those gulls 
who were most free with their money, in interjected observa- 
tions on the beauty of tenderness and compassion, and in 
fervent recommendations to its readers not to deny them- 
selves the enjoyment of " that most Godlike and pleasing of 
all pleasures," the luxury of relieving the distressed. With 
the "Apology" as an apology, however, we need not here 
concern ourselves ; and, as there appears to be no reason for 
doubting the substantial accuracy of the stories related in 
either of these little volumes, there is no need to particularise 
in every case from which of them any item of information is 
drawn. 

Bampfylde was born with a silver spoon in his mouth ; and 
we are assured that when he was christened, in July, 1693, 
" never was there known a more splendid appearance of 
gentlemen and ladies of the first rank and quality at any 
baptism in the west of England." His godfathers, Mr. Hugh 
Bampfylde and Major Moore, had, it appears, an amiable 
altercation as to whose name should have precedence ; and 
as they tossed for it, and Mr. Bampfylde won, he presented 
the infant with a handsome piece of plate whereon was 
engraved in large letters " Bampfylde-Moore Carew." The 
boy's father, the Rev. Theodore Carew, rector of Bickleigh, 
near Tiverton, had several other children, both sons and 
daughters, who all grew up to be respectable members of 
society, and never did anything else worthy of mention; 
but young Bampfylde, who was sent to school at Tiverton 
at the age of twelve, made such progress in his studies 
during his first four years there that it was hoped he would 
one day make some figure in the Church. At the Tiverton 
school he likewise became very intimate with a number of 
lively young gentlemen of rank belonging to Devonshire and 
the adjacent counties, and made even more surprising progress 
in hunting than in the classics. The boys somehow managed 

150 



BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW 

to keep a pack of hounds ; and amongst Bampfylde's most 
intimate associates in this sport were John Martin, Thomas 
Coleman, and John Escott, all of whom we shall hear of 
again. One day, when Bampfylde was about sixteen years 
of age, a neighbouring farmer incautiously informed these 
lads that he had seen in a field near by a fine deer with a 
collar round its neck. Of course they promptly set off in a 
body to hunt the animal. The chase proved a hot one, 
lasting several hours ; and, as the fields were ripe for harvest, 
much damage was done. The owner of the deer, and 
farmers and others who had suffered severely, came and 
complained to the schoolmaster, so much fuss being made 
that the boys appear to have become thoroughly frightened. 
Next day, rather than face the music, they absconded from 
school. After wandering aimlessly about the country all day, 
they fell in with a company of gipsies, who were carousing 
at a wayside inn with such apparent happiness and freedom 
from care that the boys thought what a fine life theirs must 
be, and offered to join them. The gipsies at first treated 
this proposal as a mere jest ; but when the lads stayed all 
night, and earnestly renewed their proposal on the morrow, 
the matter assumed another aspect, and after their faces and 
hands had been stained with walnut juice, and they had 
taken the required oaths and gone through the necessary 
ceremonial, they were duly admitted to the community. 
While the gipsies remained at this place crowds of people, 
of both sexes and all ages, came to them from the surround- 
ing districts to have their fortunes told ; and probably the 
boys' knowledge of the characters and circumstances of 
many of them came in very useful. The first person off 
whom Carew made any considerable score was a Mrs. 
Musgrave, of Monkton, near Taunton, who suspected a large 
sum of money to be buried somewhere about her house, and 
sought to find it by means of the wisdom of the Egyptians. 
Carew took her case in hand, and after making a great parade 
of consulting his secret oracles, etc., informed her that the 

I5i 



_ 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

treasure was buried underneath a certain laurel tree in her 
garden, but that, as her favouring planet was not in the 
ascendant for three days to come, she must on no account 
begin to dig before then. Of course the gipsy wanted his 
fee at once, and the lady was so overjoyed at the prospect 
before her that she handed him the sum of thirty guineas. 
Three days later, when her digging had revealed nothing but 
the roots of her laurel tree, needless to say, Carew and his 
company were nowhere to be found. 

The parents of Bampfylde and the other lads were naturally 
in great distress ; but, in spite of numerous advertisements, 
nothing could be learned about any one of them until after 
the expiration of six months, when Coleman and Martin 
returned to their homes and told what they had been doing. 
Messengers were then despatched to all the alehouses and 
other known gipsy resorts in the "west of England, but no 
intelligence of Bampfylde could be obtained ; and it was not 
until a year later that the young prodigal put in an appear- 
ance, being moved thereto, as he declared, not because he 
was tired of his companions, but because he had heard of the 
distress into which his parents were plunged on his account. 
He was received with open arms, the fatted calf was killed, 
the church bells were rung, and the whole parish gave itself 
up to festive rejoicing in sympathy with its good rector. 
Everything that his parents and friends could think of to make 
home agreeable to him was done ; but the vagabond streak 
in his constitution was too strong to be eradicated, for, after 
remaining only two months, he stole quietly away to rejoin 
his wandering associates, and was ceremoniously readmitted 
to the community at their next general assembly. Coleman's 
parents, not unnaturally, thought that their son would be 
content with the roving life of a sailor, and accordingly 
placed him in the navy ; but the same fascination was 
strong upon him also, and before long Carew had the satis- 
faction of welcoming his old schoolfellow once more as a 
travelling companion. 

152 



BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW 

Carew's professional disguises were manifold, and his 
" make-up " must have been as well studied as that of an 
actor, for in one character or another he frequently visited 
without detection those who were well acquainted with him, 
even going boldly to the rectory at Bickleigh and answering 
the questions of his own father and mother, who always 
inquired anxiously of any wanderer for news of their missing 
son. He took much pride in his ability in this line, and 
relates that he once raised a contribution twice in one day 
from a certain Mr. Jones merely because he had heard that 
gentleman declare that it was impossible for anybody to be 
so deceived. In the morning, with sooty face, leathern apron, 
woollen cap, and dejected countenance, he obtained relief as 
an unfortunate blacksmith whose all had been consumed by 
fire; in the afternoon he again extracted money as a pale 
and sickly-looking tinner, supported on crutches, who 
professed to be totally disabled by the damps of the mines 
and compelled to solicit charity for his wife and seven small 
children. Whenever he heard of a fire, in town or village, 
Carew instantly paid a visit to the place, and having acquired 
full information as to the names and families, the trades and 
circumstances, of the sufferers by it, first artfully singed his 
coat and burnt a hole in his hat, and then tramped the 
surrounding country representing himself as one of these 
unfortunate persons, who had been burnt out and lost his 
all. Sometimes he managed to induce a sympathising person 
of creditable reputation to write him a letter recommending 
his case ; often he forged such letters himself, as he did also 
passes and testimonials from justices of the peace, whose 
signatures he copied from the licences of the inns at which 
he was in the habit of staying. One of the most profitable 
"lays" was that of a shipwrecked mariner; but finding his 
technical knowledge insufficient for the proper support of 
this part, he determined to make a voyage of discovery. 
Having apparently saved enough money for the purpose, he 
persuaded his old schoolfellow Escott to bear him company ; 

153 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

and the two of them took ship from Dartmouth to Newfound- 
land, decently habited and paying their own passage. By 
this means they not only acquired familiarity with nautical 
language and the details of a seaman's life, but by visiting 
all the settlements, both English and French, and informing 
themselves of the names, characters, and circumstances of 
all the inhabitants of any note in Newfoundland, they laid in 
a further stock of information which was capable of being 
turned to pecuniary account. After their return from this 
expedition Carew went about in the character of a ship- 
wrecked mariner whose vessel had been lost when homeward 
bound from Newfoundland, and belonged to Poole, or to 
Dartmouth, or to any other port according as the newspapers 
reported the wreck of any vessel connected with the district. 
But deeming his education still incomplete, the next 
thing Carew did was to apprentice himself to a noted rat- 
catcher, who also pretended to cure madness in cats and 
dogs. Bampfylde had already some reputation as a dog- 
stealer, and often took hounds and setters from one 
neighbourhood to sell them at a good price in another. In 
fact, from his schoolboy days he had been supposed to 
possess some mysterious secret which caused dogs to follow 
him as children followed the pied piper of Hamelin. He 
spent two years travelling about with this man, and found 
the business of rat-catching, combined with dog-stealing, 
both a pleasant and profitable occupation. But, change and 
novelty having still greater attractions, he presently set up 
as a rag merchant. As this trade, however, somewhat 
restricted his movements, involved the renting of some sort 
of warehouse, and hampered him with a donkey and cart, 
he soon forsook it, and incontinently turned himself into a 
" Tom o' Bedlam." With no shirt to his back, without shoes 
or stockings, covered only with a blanket or an old and 
ragged clergyman's gown, wearing a cap of fox-skin with the 
long bushy tail hanging down behind, his beard shaved on 
one side of the face only, carrying in his hand a large horn, 

154 



BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW 

whereon were engraved names of ancient members of his 
family (which he now pretended was the Welsh family of 
Morgan), and wearing on his right arm a piece of brass 
plate made after the model of a certificate from Bedlam, 
Carew presented a tragic appearance calculated to evoke 
both pity and terror. In this guise he boldly marched right 
into any house, whether great or small, without further 
notice than the winding of his horn, claimed kindred with 
the occupiers, whoever they might be, and confidently 
demanded his "rent." This was a very profitable line of 
business, for his distracted look and incoherent talk and frantic 
actions prompted many to give him money out of pity, whilst 
others gave merely to get rid of such a nuisance, and many 
more through fear, especially those who lived in solitary places. 
All these various and successful begging stratagems not 
only produced a constant supply of coin, but also procured 
him such favour with the gipsy community that on the 
death of Clause Patch they elected Carew to be their 
"king." On this occasion, we are told, the following ode 
was sung by the jubilant electors : — 

I. 

" Cast your nabs 1 and cares away ; 
This is Maunders' 2 holiday : 
In the world look round and see 
Where so happy a King as He. 8 

II. 

" At the crowning of our King 
Thus we ever dance and sing : 
Where's the nation lives so free 
And so merrily as we ? 

III. 

" Be it peace or be it war, 
Here at liberty we are : 
Hang all Harmenbecks 4 ! we cry, 
We the Cuffin Queeres 5 defy. 

1 Hats or caps. 2 Beggars'. 3 Pointing to the new king. 

4 Constables. 5 Justices. 

155 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

IV. 

" We enjoy our ease and rest; 
To the field we are not prest ; 
And when taxes are increas'd, 
We are not a penny cess'd. 

V. 

" Nor will any go to law 
With a Maunder for a straw : 
All which happiness, he braggs, 
Is only owing to his rags 1 " 

Although now, owing to the dignity of his office, Carew 
was privileged from going out on begging excursions, his 
zeal never slackened, and his exploits were as successful as 
ever. But occasionally, when the whim took him, he would 
make " a very genteel appearance." Having a curiosity to 
see Newcastle and the coal district, he travelled thither, 
decently attired, and put up at reputable lodgings, wheve he 
passed for the mate of a vessel belonging to Dartmouth. 
While there he became acquainted with an apothecary- 
named Gray, who had a very charming daughter, with whom 
the vagrant instantly fell in love. If he had made his 
addresses to the young lady in his " kingly " habiliments, he 
would doubtless have been driven out of the place with 
scorn ; but being a good-looking, well-built young fellow, 
rather handsomely dressed, and possessed of a remarkably 
oily tongue, he had little difficulty in persuading Miss Gray 
to elope with him. They were duly married, and spent their 
honeymoon at Bath, making considerable show and mixing in 
the society of the place as an evidently very well-to-do young 
couple. They then went on a visit to an uncle of Carew's, 
a clergyman at Portchester, who received them with great 
hospitality, and offered to make Bampfylde his heir if he would 
abandon his gipsy life and settle down respectably. But 
the vagrant was not to be persuaded. When Mrs. Carew 
discovered who it was she had married she was at first 
extremely disgusted ; but as her husband's business was 

156 



BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW 

evidently a good money-making concern, and as he at once 
proposed to make her treasurer, she quickly became recon- 
ciled to it, and even occasionally gave a hand in the business 
herself. Sometimes she travelled about with him, but the 
usual plan was for him to leave her for a fortnight or so at a 
time at some lodging-house or inn and return to her there 
with the profits of his excursion. 

Of course nobody could ply the " mumper's " trade 
without encountering occasional reverses. Carew admits 
that he was twice publicly whipped and several times clapped 
into prison. He even had the ill-luck to be arrested once in 
mistake for another man, a runaway blacksmith who had 
made off with several of his customers' horses. When 
brought up for examination next day, he had little difficulty 
in proving that he was not the defaulting blacksmith, but 
Bampfylde-Moore Carew, King of the Mumpers, and the 
justice was consequently about to order his release, when a 
man in court stood up and insisted on his being committed 
as a rogue and an impostor, alleging that he had seen him 
and been defrauded by him the previous day in Bishop's 
Nimpton, when he pretended to be one John Palmer, of 
Abbotsbury, and obtained money from several persons by 
the exhibition of certificates to that effect, the signatures to 
which he had doubtless forged. Being therefore committed 
to Exeter gaol, Carew immediately sent for his wife, and 
instructed her to go into the debtors' ward, opposite to where 
he was confined, and find out the names, characters, and 
circumstances of those who were confined there. When she 
had done this he fixed upon a certain Mr. Maddick, who was 
of a reputable family, well known throughout the county, 
and whose present circumstances were more than ordinarily 
deplorable ; and when Mrs. Carew had gathered all the 
information she could concerning his place and family and 
misfortunes, she went about pretending to be his sister and 
soliciting contributions for his relief. Every three or four 
days she brought what she thus collected, not to poor 

157 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

Maddick the debtor, but to Carew the mumper and dog- 
stealer, who was thus well provided for as long as his 
imprisonment lasted. Luckily for him also, when he was 
brought up before the justices at quarter sessions some of 
them happened to be old schoolfellows of his at Tiverton, 
who not only let him off without punishment, but, after 
making kind inquiries after Martin and Coleman and Escott, 
invited him to dinner at their inn, and subscribed several 
pounds amongst them to help him on his way. But the 
justices were not invariably friendly, and an encounter with 
one of them changed the field of his operations for sometime. 
Squire Incledon, of Barnstaple, owed him a grudge, and got 
him committed to Exeter gaol two months or more before he 
could be brought up for trial. Then he was brought before 
a hostile bench and sentenced to transportation for seven 
years. " Thus," exclaims his apologist, in comical heroics, 
" thus sudden and unexpected fell the mighty Caesar, the 
master of the world; and just so affrighted Priam looked when 
the shade of Hector drew the curtains and told him that 
Troy was taken." 

Carew and about a hundred other convicts were packed on 
board the Juliana, Captain Froude commander, and, in con- 
sequence of bad weather, took as long as eleven weeks to 
reach Maryland. When at last anchor was" cast in Miles's 
River, the captain fired a gun as signal to the planters to 
come aboard and buy his cargo of convicts. The colonials' 
first inquiry was, as usual, for news from home, and the 
captain informed them that, just before he left, war had been 
declared against Spain. Carew's " histriographer " never by 
any chance mentions a date, but this item of news enables us 
to fix the year, for as Walpole declared war against Spain in 
October, 1739, Carew must have arrived in Maryland early in 
1740, when he was in his forty-seventh year. The colonials' 
next inquiry was whether the captain had brought them a 
good supply of carpenters, joiners, blacksmiths, weavers, and 
tailors. The most useful artisans were soon sold ; but, as 

158 



BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW 

Carew was proclaimed a mendicant, rat-catcher, and dog 
merchant, there were no bidders for him. The captain took 
him ashore next day, and was trying to palm him off over a 
bowl of punch at a tavern as an excellent scholar who would 
make a good schoolmaster, when the slippery rogue quietly 
absconded and made off into the woods; but he was soon 
recaptured, and after a whipping an iron collar was fastened 
round his neck such as was then put upon all runaway 
slaves. It was not easy to get rid of this encumbrance in 
Maryland, as any one who assisted in removing it was liable 
to a fine of £45 and six months' imprisonment. He escaped, 
however, by the aid of a Captain Hervey and some other 
west of England men of his acquaintance, whose ships 
happened to be then lying in the harbour, although all they 
could do for him was to provide him with provisions and 
direct him how to make for the territory of some friendly 
Indians, whose chief called himself George Lillycraft, and was 
the son of one of that party of so-called " Indian kings " who 
visited England during the reign of Queen Anne and are 
mentioned in Addison's Spectator. After a forced march of 
several days Carew reached the habitation of these Indians, 
who received him hospitably and removed his iron collar. 
He dwelt with them some months apparently, and exhibited 
such skill in hunting and other matters that they wished to 
adopt him and offered him a wife from the family of their 
chief. Had he been content to stay with them, perhaps he 
might have become King of the Indians instead of King of 
the Mumpers ; but, apart from the fact that he was genuinely 
attached to Mrs. Carew, he evidently regarded the latter 
dignity as the higher, and, therefore, seized the first oppor- 
tunity that presented itself to cross the Delaware and make 
his way to the Quakers of Pennsylvania. Of course he 
immediately assumed the character of a Quaker, and having 
acquired a good deal of information from a communicative 
barber, went on from one place to another, varying his story 
according to what he had heard of his hearers and getting 

159 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

liberal assistance everywhere. In one town he found the 
great preacher Whitefield holding forth to a vast concourse 
of people, who had come from all parts of the country to 
hear him. The mention of this circumstance again enables 
us to fix an approximate date to the mumper's narrative, 
and to some extent it confirms the truth of his story, for we 
know that Whitefield went to America in October, 1739, and 
that for eighteen months following he went about preach- 
ing through Maryland, Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia. 
Benjamin Franklin, in his Autobiography, tells us of one 
particular in which the great preacher resembled our friend 
the mumper, viz., in an extraordinary faculty for conjuring 
the money out of his hearers' pockets. Franklin had dis- 
agreed with Whitefield's project of building an orphanage 
in Georgia, and had refused to contribute to the scheme ; 
but he tells us : — 

" I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in the course of 
which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I confi- 
dently resolved that he should get nothing from me. I had in my 
pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five 
pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to 
give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of 
that, and determined me to give the silver ; and he finished so admirably 
that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all." 

It would have been extremely interesting if we could have 
had a like account of Carew's effect upon Franklin, but 
apparently the mumper never made an attack upon him. 
He applied to the preacher, however, sending in a written 
petition, on account of the difficulty of reaching him through 
the crowd of his admirers, setting forth that he was one John 
Moore, son of a clergyman, who had been kidnapped and 
taken into the Havannah, whence he had escaped, and was 
now anxious to return to his friends in England. Whitefield 
saw him, and told him that such misfortunes happened by 
the will of God and must be submitted to with patience and 
resignation, but at the same time he took out his pocket- 
book and presented Carew with a note for £4. Then the 

160 



BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW 

vagabond went on to Philadelphia, where he called on 
William Penn, who gave him money and engaged with the 
captain of a homeward-bound ship to carry him to England 
free of charge. But Carew was not yet ready for a home- 
ward voyage, as he wished first to see New York and other 
places. He notes the fact that at Penn's house the door was 
opened by a negro with a silver collar round his neck similar 
to the iron one from which the friendly Indians had relieved 
his own. 

At length he took ship for England, and the vessel, having 
a favourable wind, ran from New London to Lundy in a 
month and three days. The sailors, pleased with their quick 
passage, were very joyful, anticipating all sorts of jubilation 
as soon as they got ashore ; but when the pilot came aboard 
he informed the master that there was bad news for his crew, 
as Captain Goodere, of the Ruby man-of-war, which was then 
lying in the King's Road, was pressing every man he could 
lay hands on. On hearing this Carew immediately pricked 
his arms and chest with a needle, and rubbed in bay salt and 
gunpowder, in order to give himself the appearance of having 
the smallpox. Then he lay down in his hammock, with a 
blanket round him, groaning and pretending to be very sick, 
by which means, when a lieutenant from the Ruby came 
aboard and peremptorily demanded all the crew, the artful 
mumper was the only one who was not taken. This must 
have happened about the close of the year 1740, and it is 
rather strange that our mumper does not mention the fact 
that Captain Goodere murdered his brother, Sir John 
Goodere, Bart., on board the Ruby at that same place in 
January, 1741, and was duly hanged therefor after trial at 
the ensuing assizes. As soon as Carew was put ashore he 
went to a place called Mendicants' Hall to obtain news of 
his wife, and after he had found her he paid a visit to 
Bickleigh ; then, his foot being upon his native heath, he 
resumed with gusto his beloved profession of mumping. 
One day he was a poor shipwrecked mariner ; the next, 
n.d. 161 M 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

perhaps, habited in gown, cassock, and band, he was a non- 
juring clergyman who had been turned out of his benefice, 
soliciting charity on behalf of his delicate wife and starving 
children. Then, in a plain dress and broad-brimmed hat and 
extraordinarily demure of countenance, he would go " thee"-ing 
and "thou"-ing about as a Quaker who had met with un- 
deserved misfortunes. On one occasion, disguised as a tinker, 
he had an altercation with his brother, the vicar of Saltash, in 
the parlour of an inn, and on another, dressed as a fine gentle- 
man, he attended a cock-fight and laid wagers with his 
cousin, Sir Coventry Carew, without being detected in either 
character. Whenever he did happen to be detected he usually 
managed to turn the occasion to his own advantage either 
by raising a laugh or in some other fashion, as in the follow- 
ing instance. Although very well known to the family of 
Squire Portman, he boldly marched up to that gentleman's 
house one day in the habit of a rat-catcher, with hairy cap 
on his head, buff girdle about his waist, and a tame rat in a 
little box by his side. Meeting the squire and several friends 
in the courtyard, he inquired whether their honours had any 
vermin to be killed. " Do you understand your business 
well ? " inquired the squire. " Yes, and please, your honour," 
was the reply, " I have followed it many years and been 
employed in his Majesty's yards and ships:" " Well, then, 
go in and get something to eat, and after dinner we will see 
what you can do." After dinner he was called into the great 
parlour, where was a large company of ladies and gentlemen. 
" Well, honest rat-catcher," queried Mr. Portman, " can 
you lay any scheme to kill the rats without hurting my 
dogs ? " Being assured that this could be done satisfactorily, 
Mr. Portman next asked the rat-catcher what countryman 
he was, and being answered, "A Devonshire man," promptly 
demanded his name. Seeing by the nods and smiles of some 
of them that his identity had been discovered, he coolly 
spelled out " B-a-m-p-f-y-1-d-e-M-o-o-r-e C-a-r-e-w." There 
was a general laugh, and when it had subsided Carew impu- 

162 



BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW 

dently inquired, "What scabby sheep has infected this 
flock ? " He was informed that the only person present 
who had penetrated his disguise was the Rev. Mr. Bryant, 
whereupon he turned to the parson and asked him if he had 
forgotten good King Charles's rule, — referring presumably to 
the story of that king having once detected, but declined to 
expose, a thief who was pursuing his occupation amongst the 
courtiers in Whitehall. A Mr. Pleydell then expressed his 
pleasure at seeing one of whom he had heard so much, but 
whom he had never happened to set eyes on before. " Do you 
remember," asked Carew, " a poor wretch at your stable door 
a few weeks back, with an old stocking round his head instead 
of a cap and an old woman's ragged mantle over his shoulders, 
who declared that he was a shipwrecked sailor, a Tiverton 
man, who had been cast away on the coast and rescued 
from a watery grave by a Frenchman ; and do you remember 
that, after testing him by many questions about the people 
of Tiverton, you gave him a suit of clothes and a guinea ? " 
Mr. Pleydell did remember that wretched object. " Well, 
sir," rejoined Carew, "that wretched object was no other 
than the rat-catcher whom you now see before you." The 
company now laughed at Mr. PleydelFs expense, whereupon 
he said, " I will lay a guinea that I recognise you another 
time, come in what shape you will." Some of those present 
being of a contrary opinion, the wager was taken, and it was 
agreed that Carew should try his ingenuity upon the confident 
gentleman the next time he happened to be tramping that 
part of the country. Having given the company much 
diversion, a liberal collection was made for him, and he took 
his leave. But Parson Bryant, to make up for having exposed 
him on this occasion, followed him out and told him that the 
same company would meet at Mr. Pleydell's house within a 
very few days, and advised the vagabond to take that oppor- 
tunity of deceiving them all together. Carew was equal to 
the occasion ; and when the day arrived, after a clean shave, 
he dressed himself in a woman's gown and petticoats, had 

163 M 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

two gipsy children strapped on his back, and carried in his 
arms a little humpbacked child whom he had borrowed of 
a travelling tinker. As soon as he arrived at Mr. Pleydell's 
door he put a hand behind him and pinched the two children 
smartly enough to set them both screaming, which noise 
started the squire's dogs barking and disturbed the whole 
household. Out ran one of the maids to bid the old woman 
take her squalling brats away, as they discomposed the ladies. 
" God bless their Ladyships ! " cried the old woman. " I am 
the poor unfortunate grandmother of these poor helpless 
darlings, whose dear mother was burnt in the dreadful fire 
at Kirton the other day; and I hope the good ladies, for 
God's sake, will give me a trifle to keep the poor famished 
infants from starving." Then the old woman wept copiously, 
and the sympathetic maid ran in to acquaint her ladies with 
the melancholy tale, while Carew kept on surreptitiously 
pinching the brats, so that they maintained a howling chorus. 
Presently the girl returned with a half-crown from the ladies 
as well as a bowl of appetising stew. Learning that the 
gentlemen were not in the house, but were expected to arrive 
at any moment, Carew sat down in the yard, prolonging his 
meal and getting one of the under-servants to feed the 
children on his back. While this was going on the gentle- 
men rode into the yard. " Hallo, old woman ! " said Mr. 
Pleydell ; " where did you come from ? " " From Kirton, 
please, your honour," squeaked Carew, " where my daughter, 
the mother of these poor helpless babes, was burnt to death 
in the flames " ; and then, of course, followed a torrent of 
circumstantial details and pathetic supplications. " Damn 
you ! " exclaimed Mr. Pleydell ; " there has been more money 
collected for Kirton already than Kirton was ever worth." 
However, he threw the weeping old grandmother a shilling, 
and all his friends followed suit. The money was received 
with the most profound gratitude, and the old woman hobbled 
away into the road, but just as the gentlemen were about 
to enter the house she surprised them with a " Tantivy ! 

164 



BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW 

tantivy ! " and such a halloo to the dogs as caused her to be 
promptly brought back and her disguise stripped off, when, 
we are assured, the gentlemen were so pleased with the 
ingenuity of the deception that the mumper was handsomely 
rewarded. 

Carew and his mumper associates were in the habit of 
attending all the fairs in the west of England, when, made 
up as deaf and dumb, or blind, or maimed unfortunates, they 
would plant themselves by a bridge or at a cross-road at the 
entrance of the town and keep up a loud and lamentable 
cry all day long, till their pockets were heavily laden with 
halfpence. Once when he was at Bridgwater Fair, together 
with his old schoolfellows Coleman and Escott, there were 
so many miserable-looking objects, halt, and maimed, and 
blind, and deaf, and dumb, asking alms, that the mayor 
suspected the majority of them to be counterfeits. Being a 
humourist in his way, he declared that he would make the 
blind see, the deaf hear, and the lame walk ; and, as a first 
step towards their cure, he had the whole lot arrested and 
lodged in the Dark House. They passed the night in fear 
and trembling; and early next morning they received a visit 
from a well-known physician of the town, who told them 
they must expect no mercy from the mayor, who would deal 
with such as were not what they represented themselves to 
be with the utmost severity ; but, as he rather sympathised 
with them himself, he advised all of them who were counter- 
feits to make a bolt for it as soon as he unfastened the door. 
The mayor and aldermen and many others in the secret 
were posted opposite the prison to see what would happen. 
No sooner had the doctor unlocked the door than the whole 
crowd rushed out pell-mell : the deaf had heard well enough 
what he had said ; the blind had no difficulty in finding the 
shortest way out of the town ; the lame flung away their 
crutches and ran like hunted deer. In fact, there was only 
one, a really lame man, who failed to get away ; and this 
poor wretch, after being brought before the mayor and 

165 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

admonished, had a collection made for him, which amply 
compensated him for his one night's imprisonment. Carew 
relates another instance in which an eccentric humourist got 
the better of him. One day, as he was begging from door to 
door in Maiden Bradley in the habit of a shipwrecked sailor, 
he saw on the other side of the street a brother mendicant 
mariner doing likewise. The fellow crossed over, asked him 
where he lay last night, what road he was going, and several 
other civil questions, and then proposed that he should 
" brush into the boozing-ken and be his thrums," i.e., go 
into an alehouse and spend threepence with him. They 
compared notes about the country, the charitable and 
uncharitable families, the moderate and severe justices, and 
so forth, finally agreeing to divide that village between them 
and visit the neighbouring gentlemen's houses together. In 
course of conversation by the way, the other " ancient 
mariner" was surprised to learn that he had entered into a 
temporary partnership with the celebrated King of the 
Mumpers, and expressed in appropriate slang his sense of the 
honour. Presently they came to Lord Weymouth's place, 
where it was agreed that Carew should act as spokesman. 
The servants bade them be gone unless they could give a very 
good account of themselves and of the countries they pre- 
tended to have come from, for Lord Weymouth, who had 
travelled in many parts of the world, would infallibly detect 
any impostor and have him whipped and committed to 
Bridewell without mercy. Carew, however, confidently told 
a harrowing tale, with the most circumstantial details, of 
their lamentable misfortunes, and, as his Lordship seemed to 
be just then out of the way, the two rogues obtained both 
money and victuals from the housekeeper. The victuals 
they exchanged for liquor at a neighbouring wayside inn, 
where, after sharing the takings of the day, they parted, 
each having mapped out for himself a separate excursion. 
But now the second beggar, who was none other than Lord 
Weymouth himself, hurried back to his own house by a private 

166 



BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW 

way through the park, and being let in by a confidential 
valet, changed his clothes, and immediately sent off two men 
on horseback to apprehend the pretended sailors who, as he 
was informed, had been imposing on the neighbourhood. 
His servants, who had no suspicion of the true state of the 
case, soon returned with Carew, but reported that they could 
find no trace of the other fellow. Lord Weymouth questioned 
the vagrant roughly, and having told him that his companion 
would infallibly be caught and brought in very shortly, 
assured him that if, on separate examination, their stories 
were found to disagree, it was " cat-o'-nine-tails " and Bride- 
well for the pair of them. He then went away, donned his 
beggar's rags once more, caused his confidential man to 
conduct him through the room where his prisoner was 
confined, as though he were being taken elsewhere for separate 
examination, changed back again into his ordinary attire, had 
Carew brought before him in another room, and indignantly 
denounced the trembling rascal as a detected impostor who 
should be dealt with according to the utmost rigour of the 
law. Having diverted himself in this fashion until he was 
tired of it, Lord Weymouth sent for a neighbour, Captain 
Atkins, who he knew had been at school with Carew at 
Tiverton, in order that he might make sure of his captive's 
identity, for such was the rascal's celebrity that many inferior 
mumpers were in the habit of endeavouring to pass them- 
selves off for the " King." Being thus satisfied that he had 
caught the real Simon Pure, he confessed that it was he who 
had masqueraded as the other beggar, and they all made 
merry together. He presented Carew with a good suit of 
clothes, gave him ten guineas for his pocket, took him to the 
races, introduced him to his friends and acquaintances, and 
entertained him handsomely for several days. Thomas 
Thynne, second Viscount Weymouth, who died in 1750, at 
the age of forty, is the hero of this escapade, and is other- 
wise unknown to history. 

A Mr. Thomas Price, of Poole, who made a redaction of 

167 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

the " Apology " in 1810, states that he was well acquainted 
with Carew, who, realising after a time that he was keeping 
his wife and child in a very false position, determined to try 
his fortune in a totally different line in London. He was 
converted to this better way of thinking, we are assured, by 
an eloquent sermon preached by a right reverend bishop ; and, 
having resigned his gipsy sceptre, devoted himself to the 
highly respectable occupation of speculating in lotteries. 
The speculation proved so extraordinarily successful that 
after a very few years he was able to buy a neat and com- 
fortable estate in his native west country, where he " ended 
his days beloved and esteemed by all." According to one 
account this took place in 1758, according to another in 1770. 
" His wife died some time before he did," says Mr. Price ; 
" and his daughter, to whom he left a genteel fortune, married 
a young gentleman of the neighbourhood, and at the present 
time of writing " (? 1810), " by the sweetness of her behaviour 
and amiableness of her character, is a blessing to herself, a 
pattern to her acquaintance, and an honour to his family." 
All which sounds a trifle unlikely, and the reader may take 
Mr. Price's word for it or not as he pleases. 

The " histriographer " of the " Apology " in 1750 describes 
Carew, who was then fifty-seven years of age, as tall and 
majestic, strong and well proportioned of limb, with regular 
features and " a countenance open and ingenuous, bearing all 
those characteristical marks which physiognomists assert 
denote an honest and good-natured mind." The engraving 
of him which is prefixed to the book appears to have been 
made after a portrait by " Mr. Philips, a celebrated limner of 
Porlock," who painted it at the request and charge of 
Mr. Coplestone Bampfylde. It represents him as a portly, 
resolute-looking, square-jawed, shrewd, capable man of affairs, 
much more like a dignified chairman of quarter sessions 
than a vagabond beggar. Unfortunately, he seems to have 
had no literary faculty ; and whoever it was that took down 
his recollections was not only equally deficient in this respect, 

168 



BAMPFYLDE-MOORE CAREW 

but also without sufficient intelligence to make any inquisition 
into his motives and feelings. The restlessness, the passion 
for the open air, and the constitutional reserve or aloofness, 
which are such prominent characteristics of all the vagabond 
spirits who have taken to literature — of Thoreau, of Richard 
Jefferies, of George Borrow, or of Mr. W. H. Davies, the 
poetic " super-tramp " of our own day — were his in full 
measure. He would doubtless have said, with Mr. Davies, 

"This is a jolly life indeed, 
To do no work and get my need," 

or have exclaimed, as does our modern " super-tramp " : — 

" Lord ! who would live in towns with men, 
And hear the hum of human greed, 
With such a life as this to lead ? " 

But from the " Apology " for his life we get no indication 
that he took any delight in birds or animals, except in 
snaring them, or that he ever brooded on the loveliness of 
the English country-side, like Mr. Watts-Dunton's " Children 
of the Open Air," 

" Loving the sun, the wind, the sweet reproof 
Of storms, and all that makes the fair earth fair." 

It is apparent, however, that he must have had a good 
deal of humour, considerable insight into human nature 
many of the qualifications of an actor, and a power of 
imparting an air of reality to imaginary events which, 
combined with an aptitude for using the pen, would have 
made his fortune as a novelist. He seems to have been 
considered, and to have considered himself, as a sort of 
popular entertainer. The country squires whom he hoaxed, 
though not always very pleased when they were themselves 
deceived, were always hugely delighted to see their neigh- 
bours taken in, and then found Carew's tricks " as good as 
a play." It is as impossible for us to be angry with the 
rascal as it was for them, and we may let him march out of 

169 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

these pages repeating the tu quoque which he prefixed to Mr. 
(or Mrs.) Goadby's recital of his adventures : — 

" Be not too hasty, most gentle reader. Of whatever profession thou 
art, lay thy hand upon thy heart and consider if thou hast never imposed 
upon mankind. 

" Art thou honoured with the grave title of Doctor ? Recollect if you 
never prescribed and took fees when you were sensible your patient was 
incurable. Did you never agree with the Apothecary . . . and 
prescribe ten times more drugs and potions than were necessary, . . . 
whilst he, in turn, sounded the trumpet of your praise . . . when 
the patient, perhaps, would have recovered much sooner without the 
presence of either ? 

"But perhaps the reader is some Gentleman of the Law. If so, let him 
consider, before he is angry with me, if he never took in hand a bad 
cause, and assured his client of the goodness of it ? . . . And 
when he has been cast in one court, has he not by specious promises 
and false hopes enticed his client to try the issue in another ? . . . 
Or has he never agreed with his brother counsellor ... to spin 
out the cause by unnecessary delays, till they got the oyster between 
them, and left their clients nothing but the shells ? 

" But perhaps some plodding honest tradesman is reading my Memoirs, 
with loud exclamations at my cheats and impostures. But he must be 
much better than his neighbours if he has never contrived to darken his 
shop windows to prevent his customers seeing the flaws in his goods ; if 
he has never put off a bad commodity for a good one ; or made his goods 
weigh heavier than when he bought them." 

As the recital of Carew's career is hardly 4ikely to induce 
any one to go and do likewise, we may be content to let the 
mumper have the last word. 



170 




Elizabeth Lady Holland. 

From an engraving oj the portrait by Fagan. 



A UNIQUE HOSTESS— ELIZABETH, LADY 
HOLLAND 



A UNIQUE HOSTESS— ELIZABETH, LADY 
HOLLAND 

It is a pity that the generation which knew Elizabeth, 
Lady Holland, passed away without leaving us from the 
hands of some one of the many who enjoyed her acquain- 
tance, and were otherwise specially qualified for the task, a 
memoir, or at least a character sketch, of one who, as a 
contemporary observed, " left a more marked impression of 
her individuality than any woman of her age." And, in the 
absence of any such memoir, it seems worth while to gather 
together from a variety of scattered, and in some cases not 
very readily accessible, sources such notices as her contem- 
poraries have put upon record of this remarkable woman, 
who for the greater part of the earlier half of the nineteenth 
century was the most conspicuous female figure (royalty 
excepted) in the splendid society of London. 

Her entrance on the historic scene was made in a way 
that might have been expected to prove a permanent barrier 
against any subsequent social success. Henry Richard, third 
Lord Holland, who succeeded to the title at the age of 
nineteen, in 1792, had been in the following year sent abroad 
by his guardians in order to quench what they considered a 
premature interest in politics. In 1794 he had settled for 
a time at Florence, and while there had made the acquaint- 
ance of the beautiful wife of Sir Godfrey Webster, a Sussex 
baronet. The lady, who was Holland's senior by some 
three years, was the only child and heir of Richard Vassal, a 
wealthy planter of Jamaica, and had been married to Sir 

173 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

Godfrey when but sixteen years of age. The marriage was a 
particularly unhappy one, owing to faults upon both sides ; 
and she appears to have been left by herself in Florence 
while her husband followed his accustomed pursuits else- 
where, the result of which was that she had a son which 
Lord Holland acknowledged to be his, and that when he 
returned home in the spring of 1796 Lady Webster travelled 
with him, and continued to live with him after their arrival 
in England. Sir Godfrey Webster naturally instituted pro- 
ceedings for a divorce by Act of Parliament, and two days 
after the Bill had been assented to, Lord Holland and the 
lady were quietly married at a church in the country. Such 
was the inauspicious beginning of a union which, neverthe- 
less, appears to have lasted with unabated satisfaction to 
both parties until Lord Holland's death, forty-three years 
afterwards. 

Immediately after his return to England Lord Holland set 
about the restoration of the family mansion at Kensington ; 
and, before saying anything more about the remarkable 
woman who was thus rather strangely brought home to be 
its mistress, it may be well to devote a few words to the 
house itself, for undoubtedly its exterior architectural 
beauty, its interior arrangements, as remarkable for comfort 
as for luxury and splendour, its collection of varied objects 
of art, and its almost unbroken chain of political and literary 
associations, stretching back for nigh upon three centuries, 
form a combination which has given to Holland House the 
first place amongst our metropolitan palaces. Sir James 
Mackintosh at one time proposed to write its history ; but, 
although he commenced making notes, and received from the 
lady who is the subject of the present sketch a good deal of 
valuable information for the purpose, this proved to be but 
one of Mackintosh's many projects which were never carried 
into execution. Some notion of the beauty and the interest- 
ing associations of the place, as well as of the characters of 
its various tenants and guests, may, however, be obtained 

174 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

from the splendid book on the subject, illustrated with several 
fine steel engravings of portraits, forty heliotype illustrations, 
and an abundance of woodcuts, which was written by 
Princess Liechtenstein and published by Messrs. Macmillan 
in two quarto volumes in 1873. From this source we learn 
that somewhere about 1624 Sir Henry Rich, who became 
successively Baron Kensington and Earl of Holland, added 
to the centre and turrets of what was then known as Cope 
Castle those wings and arcades which are so pleasant a 
feature of what has ever since been known as Holland House. 
Its next occupant is said to have been the Parliamentary 
General Fairfax; and after him another of Cromwell's 
lieutenants, General Lambert, held his headquarters at 
Holland House in 1649. The second Earl of Holland, who 
succeeded to the earldom of Warwick in 1673, nevertheless 
continued to make this house his principal place of residence ; 
and in 1716 the widow of his son and successor gave the 
place its first distinctively literary association by her marriage 
with Joseph Addison. It was to what afterwards became the 
dining-room of Holland House that Gay was invited by 
Addison to give his forgiveness for some injury, he knew not 
what, and the young Earl of Warwick summoned to " see 
how a Christian could die." When this young earl himself 
died, in 1721, the estate devolved upon a cousin, William 
Edwardes (afterwards Lord Kensington) ; but during the 
following thirty years the house had a variety of more 
distinguished tenants, including Sir John Chardin, the 
Persian traveller, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, the great painter, 
and William Penn, the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania. 
There is a tradition that, after the Revolution of 1688, 
William theThird had some thought of making Holland House 
a royal palace ; but if so, he changed his mind. Its connec- 
tion with the Fox family dates back no further than to about 
the middle of the reign of George the Second, when, in 1749, 
it was let on lease to Henry Fox for what nowadays appears 
the absurdly small rental of £182 16s. gd. per annum ; and that 

175 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

rapacious politician after his elevation to the peerage as 
Lord Holland became, in 1767, the owner of the place. 
Henry Fox was already the tenant of this " suburban palace 
and paradise," says Sir George Trevelyan, 1 when his son 
Charles James was born ; but " the noise of carpenters and 
the bustle of upholsterers obliged Lady Caroline to choose a 
lodging in Conduit Street for the scene of an event which 
would have added distinction even to Holland House." Of 
Charles James's elder brother, the second Lord Holland, 
little need be said; but when Henry Richard, the third 
lord, returned to England in 1796, as already mentioned, he 
immediately set to work to restore the place to something of 
its former glory. He restored it in two ways, says Princess 
Liechtenstein : practically, by fitting it up at great expense 
for his own habitation ; and intellectually, by bringing about 
him there a circle of wits and geniuses who invested it with 
greater brilliance than it had enjoyed even in the days of 
Addison. How considerable a part in this undertaking 
was played by the lady whom he married in 1797 is abun- 
dantly shown in the various memoirs and diaries of the 
period. 

Elizabeth, Lady Holland, gave Sir James Mackintosh a 
list of the celebrities she had entertained during her reign at 
Holland House ; and Princess Liechtenstein prints this, 2 with 
a kind of thumb-nail character sketch appended to each 
name. Thus Talleyrand is described as " the diplomatic 
wit and witty diplomatist who cared not which party he 
supported, provided it was the stronger " ; Madame de Stael 
as the writer " who in graceful French painted Italy, and in 
solid French digested German literature " ; Sir Philip Francis 
as he "whose supposed authorship of 'Junius' places him 
in historical interest on a level with the wearer of the iron 
mask " ; Dr. Parr as the eccentric scholar " whose attain- 
ments and Whig principles gave him fame, and whose horror 

1 " The Early Life of Charles James Fox," p. 41. 
"Holland House," by Princess Liechtenstein, Vol. I., pp. 143 — 152* 

176 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

of the east wind was such that Tom Sheridan once kept him 
in the house for a fortnight by fixing the weathercock in an 
easterly direction," and so forth. The list, which is con- 
fessedly by no means complete, includes Metternich, the two 
Humboldts, and Can ova, in addition to the two foreign 
celebrities already cited ; legal luminaries such as the four 
great Lord Chancellors, Thurlow, Eldon, Brougham, and 
Lyndhurst, with Curran and Sir Samuel Romilly ; Count 
Romford and Sir Humphry Davy amongst men of science ; 
Sheridan, Sir Philip Francis, Dr. Parr, Lord Byron, 
Thomas Moore, Jeffrey, Rogers, Luttrell, Sydney Smith, 
Macaulay, and others too numerous to mention, amongst 
wits and men of letters ; and amongst politicians nearly all 
the celebrities of the Whig party for half a century. 

The success of the Holland House dinners was due to 
several causes : the invariable excellence of the dinner itself ; 
the charm of the hospitable host's manner and conversation ; 
the brilliancy of the company gathered together ; the fascina- 
tion of the hostess, notwithstanding certain unpleasant traits 
in her character ; and the exquisite art with which she 
directed and controlled the scene. The excellence of the 
dinners was admitted on all hands ; but it was left to 
Abraham Hay ward 1 — a not very frequent diner there — to 
suggest that that excellence was in great part due to Lady 
Holland's habit of levying contributions on guests who 
inhabited districts famous for venison, poultry, game, or any 
other edible. He relates that, the praises of the mouton des 
Ardennes having been sounded at her table when M. Van de 
Weyer was present, she commissioned that ambassador to 
procure her some. He sent an order for half a sheep, which 
the clerks in the Foreign Office in Brussels, finding it marked 
tres presse, imagined to be a bundle of despatches, and for- 
warded by special messenger. The affair, he says, got wind, 
and caused the Belgian journals to ring the changes for a 
week or more on the epicurean habits of his Excellency. 

1 " Sketches of Eminent Statesmen and Writers," Vol. II., pp. 216, 217. 
N.D. 177 N 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

The charm of Lord Holland's manner and conversation was 
also admitted on all hands. Moore noted with approbation 
in his diary in 1818 a remark of Rogers's to the effect that 
Lord Holland always came down to breakfast like a man 
upon whom some good fortune had suddenly fallen ; and 
the usually mordant Greville after Lord Holland's death, in 
1840, remarked l that no man ever had so great and general 
a popularity : " His marvellous social qualities, imperturbable 
temper, unflagging vivacity and spirit, his inexhaustible fund 
of anecdote, extensive information, sprightly wit, with 
universal toleration and urbanity, inspired all who approached 
him with the keenest taste for his company, and those who 
lived with him in intimacy with the warmest regard for his 
person." Lady Holland's organisation of the dinners and 
control of her guests have often been commented on, but by 
no one with greater point than Sir Henry Holland, the 
celebrated physician, who was an intimate friend of 
some thirty years' standing. In his " Recollections " he 
recalls some of the dinners at Holland House, and remarks 
that English and foreign Ministers and diplomatists, men 
of learning and science, poets, artists, and wits, were so 
skilfully commingled as to make it sure that none but a 
master-hand could have accomplished the result. And the 
master-hand was undoubtedly that of the mistress of the 
house. 

" Supreme in her own mansion and family, she exercised a singular 
and seemingly capricious tyranny even over guests of the highest rank 
and position. Capricious it seemed, but there was in reality intention 
in all she did ; and this intention was the maintenance of power, which 
she gained and strenuously used, though not without discretion in 
fixing its limits. No one knew better when to change her mood, and 
to soothe by kind and flattering words the provocation she had just 
given, and was very apt to give. . . . Her management of conversation 
at the dinner-table — sometimes arbitrary and in rude arrest of others, 
sometimes courteously inviting the subject — furnished a study in itself. 

1 "Journal of the Reigns of William IV. and George IV.," Part II., Vol. I., 
P- 34i- 

178 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

Every guest felt her presence, and generally more or less succumbed 
to it." 1 

He adds that she was acute in distinguishing between 
real and false merit, and although not a woman of wit in 
words, might be described as a consummate practical wit in 
all her relations to society. Once, towards the end of her 
life, she spoke to him of the labour she had undergone in 
maintaining her position ; and he remarks that the informa- 
tion was not necessary, as his own observation had made 
him well but silently aware of it. 

Beautiful, clever, and well informed, says Princess Liech- 
tenstein, 2 Lady Holland's habit of contradiction occasionally 
lent animation, not to say animosity, to her conversation, 
though she could generally accomplish the difficult feat of 
carrying off a disagreeable thing cleverly. Lady Holland's 
contradiction, however, was by no means always disagreeable. 
Moore, in his diary, 3 speaks of a dinner at Holland House 
in 1825 when she maintained a contest with great spirit and 
oddity against Lord Holland and Allen on the subject of 
General Washington, whom she, " with her usual horror of 
the liberal side of things," disliked and depreciated. But, 
he says, " the talent and good humour with which she fought 
us all was highly amusing." Greville, at a later date, 
chronicles an " agreeable " dinner which was enlivened by a 
"squabble" between Lady Holland and Allen, "at which all 
the company were ready to die of laughing." Her despotic 
rule there is no denying. To begin with, the guests were 
always invited by herself. Rogers told Dyce 4 that Lord 
Holland never ventured to ask any one to dinner without 
previously consulting her Ladyship ; and he frequently came 
to his own dinner-table without knowing whom he would 

1 "Recollections of Past Life," by Sir Henry Holland, Bart., Second 
Edition, p. 229. 

2 " Holland House," Vol. I., pp. 156, 157. 

3 " Memoirs, Journals, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore," Vol. IV., 
pp. 313, 314. 

4 " Recollections of the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers " (1856), p. 275. 

179 N 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

meet. Shortly before his death Rogers called at Holland 
House, and found only Lady Holland within ; but as he was 
coming out he met Lord Holland, who asked, " Do you 
return to dinner ? " " No," answered Rogers, " I have not 
been invited " ; and that was final. Then she insisted upon 
dining at the unusual hour of five ; and although, as Greville 
observes, nothing could be more inconvenient than such a 
shortening of the day and lengthening of the evening, her 
power over society was sufficient to compel people to get to 
her house at that hour. Greville says she was always fancy- 
ing she was ill, and that the state of her health made it 
necessary for her to dine early ; but Talleyrand declared 
that she did it merely pour gener tout le monde. She also 
systematically crowded her table. Greville noted in August, 
1832, 1 that he had been to " a true Holland House dinner," 
for two more people (Melbourne and Tom Duncombe) 
arrived than there was room for, " so that Lady Holland 
had the pleasure of a couple of general squeezes, and of 
seeing her guests' arms prettily pinioned." This practice 
gave occasion for one of Luttrell's bon moU. % Once, when 
the company was already tightly packed, an unexpected 
guest arrived, and she instantly gave her imperious order, 
" Luttrell, make room, " whereupon the wit replied, " It 
certainly must be made, for it does not exist." Moore 
mentions 3 that one day in 1842, as he was going in, he found 
in the hall a victim of another of her ways of making room, 
in the person of Gore, who was putting on his great-coat to 
take his departure, having been sent away by her Ladyship 
for want of room ; and after he had taken his place, he 
says, the pressure was so great that Allen, after performing 
his carving part, retired to dine at a small side table. But 
Moore adds that, according to Rogers, the close packing 
of Lady Holland's dinners was one of the secrets of their 

1 " Journal of the Reigns of William IV. and George IV.," Part I., Vol. II., 

p. 316- 

2 •■ Holland House," Vol. I., p. 58. 

3 Moore, Vol. VII., p. 3*3- 

180 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

conversableness and agreeableness ; and he is inclined to 
think that Rogers was right. 

Of course the imperious rule extended to the drawing- 
room also. As Macaulay wrote to his sister in 1831, 1 — 

" The centurion did not keep his soldiers in better order than she 
keeps her guests. It is to one, ' Go ! ' and he goeth ; to another, ' Do 
this,' and it is done. ' Ring the bell, Mr. Macaulay.' ' Lay down that 
screen, Lord Russell, you will spoil it.' ' Mr. Allen, take a candle, and 
show Mr. Craddock the pictures of Bonaparte.' " 

Sir Charles Lyell, some years later, remarked on the inde- 
scribable singularity of her way of questioning people, like a 
royal personage. But this, together with her tap of the fan 
and such a command as " Now, Macaulay, we have had 
enough of this; give us something else," was not altogether 
mere caprice. One who had evidently observed her well 
wrote : — 

" Beyond any other hostess we ever knew, and very far beyond any 
host, she possessed the tact of perceiving and the power of evoking the 
various capacities which lurked in every part of the brilliant circle she 
drew around her. To enkindle the enthusiasm of an artist on the theme 
over which he had achieved the most facile mastery ; to set loose the 
heart of the rustic poet, and imbue his speech with the freedom of his 
native hills ; to draw from the adventurous traveller a breathing picture 
of his most imminent danger, or to embolden the bashful soldier to 
disclose his own share in the perils and glories of some famous battle- 
field ; to encourage the generous praise of friendship, when the speaker 
and the subject reflected interest on each other, or win the secret history 
of some effort which had astonished the world or shed new light on 
science ; to conduct these brilliant developments to the height of satis- 
faction, and then to shift the scene by the magic of a word, were 
among her daily successes." 2 

It was not everybody, however,who could bear the restraint 
she imposed. When Lord Dudley was asked why he so per- 
sistently refused to dine at Holland House, he replied that 
he did not choose to be tyrannised over while he was eating 
his dinner 3 ; and on one occasion she so fidgeted Lord 

1 " Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay," Popular Edition, p. 151. 

2 Gentleman's Magazine, 1846, Part I., p. 90. 

8 Sir Henry Holland's "Recollections," p. 230. 

l8l 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

Melbourne by making him shift his place when he was seated 
to his liking that he rose, exclaiming, " I'll be damned if I 
dine with you at all ! " and walked off to his own house. 
She also occasionally aroused rebellion by exhibitions of 
temper and unwarrantable rudeness. She is reported to have 
said even to her old friend Rogers, " Your poetry is bad 
enough, so pray be sparing of your prose." To Lord 
Porchester she remarked, " I am sorry to hear you are 
going to publish a poem. Can't you suppress it ? " And 
Moore himself records in his diary that, being one day in 
rather a bravura mood, she asked him how he could write 
those " vulgar verses " about Hunt ; on another occasion told 
him she had two objections to reading his "Lalla Rookh " : 
in the first place it was Eastern, and in the second place it 
was in quarto ; and, yet again, violently attacked his " Life of 
Sheridan," telling him it was " quite a romance " and showed 
"want of taste and judgment." He says he told her she 
might go on, as he took anything and everything in good 
part from her. But he confides to his diary that " poets 
inclined to a plethora of vanity would find a dose of Lady 
Holland now and then very good for their complaint." * 
Macaulay relates that one day in November, 1833, she came 
to dinner at Rogers's, with Allen, in so bad a humour that 
they were all forced to rally and make common cause against 
her, for there was not a person at the table to whom she was 
not rude. So " Rogers sneered ; Sydney made merciless 
sport of her ; Tom Moore looked excessively impertinent ; 
Bobus put her down with simple straightforward rudeness ; 
and I treated her with what I meant to be the coldest 
civility." 2 It is satisfactory to learn that her Ladyship after- 
wards showed herself to be the better for this discipline. 
Now and again a quick-witted guest scored heavily. 

" Shortly after M. Van de Weyer's arrival in England as Belgian 
Minister, he was dining with a distinguished party at Holland House, 
when Lady Holland suddenly turned to him and asked, ' How is 

1 Moore, Vol. VII., p. 41. 2 Macaulay, " Life," p. 246. 

182 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

Leopold ? ' ' Does your Ladyship mean the King of the Belgians ? ' 'I 
have heard,' she rejoined, ' of Flemings, Hainaulters, and Brabanters, 
but Belgians are new to me.' His reply was in French, in which the 
conversation had been partly carried on : ' Miladi, avant d'avoir 
J'honneur de vous etre presente, j'avais entendu souvent parler de vous, 
non seulement comme d'une femme d'esprit, mais aussi une femme qui 
avait beaucoup lu. Eh bien 1 est-il possible que dans vos nombreuses 
lectures vous n'ayez pas rencontre le livre d'un garcon nomine Jules 
Cesar — garcon de beaucoup d'esprit — qui dans ses ' Commentaires ' 
donne a tout notre population le nom de Beiges, et ce nom nous avons 
conserve depuis lui jusqu'a nos jours ? ' "* 

The American George Ticknor, who saw much of the 
Hollands during his first visit to England, in 1819, gained a 
similar victory. She offended him by remarking that she 
believed New England was originally colonised by convicts 
sent over from the mother-country. He politely replied that 
he was not aware of it ; but he happened to know that some 
of the Vassal family had settled early in Massachusetts, 
where a house built by one of them was standing in 
Cambridge, and a marble monument to a member of the 
family was to be seen in King's Chapel, Boston. It is 
notable, however, that she always bore with calmness and 
even good humour any outbreaks of indignation which she 
had provoked, and that she both respected and liked those 
who were not afraid to treat her with spirit and freedom. 
Ticknor, for instance, who never came to like Lady Holland, 
admits that her politeness and even kindness to him in after- 
years was probably due to the foregoing passage of arms 
between them at the beginning of their acquaintance. 2 

Some observers seem to have been unable to see any but 
the unpleasant traits in Lady Holland's character. The 
mischievous — not to say malicious — Creevey, for example, 
whose gossiping "Papers" 3 were published a year or two back, 
has hardly ever a good word to say for her. He nicknamed 

1 A. Hayward, "Biographical and Critical Essays," New Series, Vol.1., 
p. 290. 

2 "Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor," Second Edition, Vol. I., 
p. 219. 

8 "The Creevey Papers," edited by Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart. 

183 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

her "old Madagascar," and, according to his account, while 
she flattered and courted him, he more often than not 
declined her invitations, because he could not stand the 
artificial bother and crowded table of her house, and found 
her presumption not to be endured. In January, 1821, he 
represents her as looking very forlorn and discontented 
because the temporarily more popular Lady Jersey was 
taking her company away from her, 1 and in December of 
the following year as disgusting her habitues by setting up a 
huge cat, to whose vagaries she demanded unqualified sub- 
mission from all her visitors. Rogers, he says, sustained 
some injury in an encounter with the animal ; Brougham 
only managed to keep it at arm's length by means of snuff ; 
and Luttrell sent in a formal resignation of all future visits 
till the new and odious favourite should be dismissed. 2 And 
her behaviour at other people's houses he represents as even 
worse than in her own. He met her in July, 1833, at Lord 
Sefton's, and thus describes the scene : — 

" She began by complaining of the slipperiness of the courtyard and 
of the danger of her horses falling, to which Sefton replied that it 
should be gravelled the next time she did him the honour of dining 
there. She then began to sniff, and turning her eyes to various pots 
filled with beautiful roses and all kinds of flowers, she said, ' Lord 
Sefton, I must beg you to have those flowers taken out of the room, 
they are so much too powerful for me.' Sefton and his valet Paoli 
actually carried the table and all its contents out of the room. Then 
poor dear little Lady Sefton, who has always a posy as large as life at 
her breast when she is dressed, took it out in the humblest manner, and 
said, ' Perhaps, Lady Holland, this nosegay may be too much for 
you ? ' But the other was pleased to allow her to keep it, though by 
no means in a very gracious manner. Then, when candles were lighted 
at the close of dinner, she would have three of them put out, as being 
too much, and too near her. Was there ever ? " s 

The letters of Joseph Jekyll convey a similar impression. 
The Hollands, he said, resembled the different ends of a 

1 " Creevey Papers," Vol. II., p. 9. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II., p. 58. 
» Ibid., Vol. II., p. 25G. 

184 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

magnet, one attractive, the other repulsive. 1 In October, 
1820, when he dined and slept at Holland House, he reported, 
" Miladi, from repletion en petite sante, as usual" 2 ; and ten 
years later all he could say of either the master or the 
mistress of the house was, " Lord Holland has the gout, and 
Miladi the blue devils." 3 Fanny Kemble has nothing but 
unpleasant impressions to record of Lady Holland. She 
first met her at a dinner at the house of Samuel Rogers in 
T-%37, when, it appears, her Ladyship drank out of her neigh- 
bour Sydney Smith's glass and otherwise behaved herself with 
"the fantastic domestic impropriety in which she frequently 
indulged, and which might have been tolerated in a spoilt 
beauty of eighteen, but was hardly becoming in a woman of 
her age and personal appearance." After dinner Fanny's 
sister Adelaide joined the party, and sat for a few moments 
beside Lady Holland, who dropped her handkerchief. 

" Adelaide, who was as unpleasantly impressed as myself by that 
lady, for a moment made no attempt to pick it up ; but reflecting upon 
her age and size, which made it difficult for her to stoop for it herself, 
my sister picked it up and presented it to her, when Lady Holland, 
taking it from her, merely said, ' Ah ! I thought you'd do it.' Adelaide 
said she felt an almost irresistible inclination to twitch it from her 
hand, throw it on the ground again, and say, ' Did you ? Then now 
do it yourself.'" 4 

Fanny Kemble goes on to say that it was always a matter 
of amazement to her that Lady Holland should have been 
allowed to ride rough-shod over society, as she did for so long 
with impunity ; and she ventures the opinion that people 
generally gave way to her Ladyship partly because of the 
respect and even affection inspired by Lord Holland, partly 
for the sake of their hosts and fellow-guests, and partly, 
perhaps chiefly, because of the immense attraction of 
Holland House, with all its various associations, and the 

1 " Correspondence of Joseph Jekyll with his Sister-in-Law," p. 176. 

2 Ibid., p. 103. 
8 Ibid., p. 217. 

4 "Records of Later Life," Vol. I., pp. 96, 97. 

185 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

brilliant and distinguished company who frequented it. 1 But 
the explanation is hardly adequate. At any rate, the brilliant 
and distinguished company who frequented Holland House 
cannot be said to have assembled there in spite of Lady 
Holland ; and, as Greville well says, although everybody 
found something to abuse or ridicule in the mistress of the 
house, they all continued to go, and they all liked it. Some 
of them, too, remained Lady Holland's lifelong affectionate 
friends. Samuel Rogers, who was a frequent visitor at 
Holland House before the death of C. J. Fox, remained on 
terms of pleasant intimacy with her for over forty years ; 
Moore's diary from 1819 to 1842 contains numerous references 
to her kindness and good qualities ; and from 1797 to his 
death, in 1845, Sydney Smith was always her grateful and 
devoted friend. 

Sydney Smith had made Lord Holland's acquaintance 
when on a visit to his brother " Bobus " at college, and the 
connection was cemented by the subsequent marriage of 
Bobus with Miss Vernon, one of Lord Holland's aunts. 
Sydney was first introduced to Holland House in 1804, 
when, according to his own account, he was distressingly 
shy ! And when the Whigs came into power in 1806, Lady 
Holland never rested until she had induced the Chancellor 
to give her favourite a living. Rogers told-Dyce 2 that when 
Sydney got the living of Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire, he 
went to thank Erskine for the appointment. " Oh," said 
Erskine, " don't thank me, Mr. Smith. I gave you the 
living because Lady Holland insisted on my doing so ; and 
if she had desired me to give it to the devil, he must have 
had it." Some sixty or more of Sydney's letters to Lady 
Holland, covering a period of nearly forty years, are to be 
found in his correspondence, as edited by Mrs. Austin ; and 
the letters are not only extremely amusing, but also, from 
first to last, indicative of his warm regard. One of these, 
written about the end of 1807, may be prefaced by something 
1 " Records," Vol. I., pp. 98, 99. 2 "Table Talk," p. 86. 

186 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

which Cyrus Redding records in his " Recollections." 1 
Redding represents Lady Holland as not only cold and 
haughty, but as offensive towards those she disliked, and 
very apt to construe into a personal affront any remark of the 
slightest nature which did not chime in with her views. By 
way of example, he says that the poet Campbell, for a mere 
jest about Lady Holland's phraseology when she spoke of 
" taking a drive," was treated with such hauteur that he 
would never afterwards visit her house to expose himself to 
a repetition of it. Some time after this, however, Campbell 
was reported to be in financial difficulties ; and, whatever 
animosity he may have cherished, it is quite evident from 
Sydney Smith's correspondence that she had none against 
him. Sydney writes : — 

" I told the little poet, after the proper softenings of wine, dinner, 
flattery, repeating his verses, etc., etc., that a friend of mine wished to 
lend him some money, and I begged him to take it." 2 

He goes on to relate that Campbell was not affronted, but, 
while expressing great gratitude to his unknown benefactor, 
declined the money on the ground that his affairs were not 
at the moment in so critical a state as to necessitate 
borrowing. Sydney therefore cancelled the draft which Lady 
Holland had sent, and he concludes his letter by telling her 
she is a very good lady, and that for what she had done, or 
rather proposed to do, he gave her his hearty benediction. 
In the following year he thus refers to his own relations to 
both her and Lord Holland : — 

" You may choose to make me a bishop, and if you do, I think I 
shall never do you discredit ; for I believe it is out of the power of lawn 
and velvet, and the crisp hair of dead men fashioned into a wig, to 
make me a dishonest man ; but if you do not, I am perfectly content, 
and shall be ever grateful to the last hour of my life to you and to 
Lord Holland." 3 

1 " Fifty Years' Recollections," Vol. III., pp. 176 — 178. 

a " Memoir and Letters of the Rev. Sydney Smith," 2 Vols. (1855), Vol. II., 

P- 3i- 
s Ibid., Vol. II., p. 38. 

187 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

Sydney used to send to Holland House what he called his 
annual tribute, in the shape of a cheese ; and presents of 
various kinds reached him from Lady Holland, which drew 
forth characteristic acknowledgments, that were carefully 
preserved : — 

" Many thanks for two fine Galicia hams ; but as for boiling them in 
wine, I am not as yet high enough in the Church for that ; so they must 
do the best they can in water. . . . Horner is ill. He was desired to 
read amusing books. Upon searching his library, it appeared he had 
no amusing books — the nearest of any work of that description being 
' The Indian Trader's Complete Guide.' M1 

Grateful and affectionate as he was, however, Sydney would 
sometimes feel called upon to speak his mind very plainly to 
Lady Holland. Once it was reported to him that she was 
in the habit of laughing at him for being happy in the 
country ; whereupon he at once sent her a letter of rebuke, 
telling her that, though not leading precisely the life he 
would choose, he considered it more manly to reconcile 
himself to it than to feign himself above it and send up 
complaints by the post about being thrown away, "and such 
like trash." 2 He frequently expostulated with her on her 
restlessness, as, in 1815, " Pray do settle in England and 
remain quiet. ... I have heard 500 travelled people assert 
that there is no such agreeable house in Europe as Holland 
House ; why should you be the last person to be convinced 
of this, and the first to make it true ? " 3 Often, of course, 
he was merely excruciatingly funny, as in a letter, written 
during the Reform Bill agitation, wherein he tells her : — 

" I met Lord John at Exeter. The people along the road were very 
much disappointed by his smallness. I told them he was much larger 
before the Bill was thrown out, but was reduced by excessive anxiety 
about the people. This brought tears into their eyes." 4 

1 " Memoir and Letters of the Rev. Sydney Smith," 2 Vols. (1855), Vol. II., 
p. 48. 

2 Ibid., Vol. II., pp. 56, 57. 
» Ibid., Vol. II., p. 124. 

4 Ibid., Vol. II., p. 321. 

188 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

Moore notes in his diary on September 14th, 1842, that 
after dinner Lady Holland read to the company a letter 
from Sydney Smith, " quite as piquant as any of her dishes." 
The letter, as given in his correspondence, runs as follows, 
and perhaps the discerning reader may be able to fill in the 
three names which Mrs. Austin has struck out: — 

"I am sorry to hear Allen is not well ; but the reduction of his legs 
is a pure and unmixed good ; they are enormous,— they are clerical ! 
He has the creed of a philosopher and the legs of a clergyman ; I never 
saw such legs — at least, belonging to a layman. . . . 

" It is a bore, I admit, to be past seventy, for you are left for 
execution, and we are daily expecting the death-warrant ; but, as you 
say, it is not anything very capital we quit. We are, at the close of life, 
only hurried away from stomach-aches, pains in the joints, from sleep- 
less nights and unamusing days, from weakness, ugliness, and nervous 
tremors ; but we shall all meet again in another planet, cured of all our 

defects. will be less irritable, more silent ; will assent; 

Jeffrey will speak slower ; Bobus will be just as he is ; I shall be more 
respectful to the upper clergy ; but I shall have as lively a sense as 
I now have of all your kindness and affection for me." 1 

It may go without the saying that Sydney Smith poked fun 
at her, as he did at everybody else. Moore relates how, when 
Lady Holland proposed to stay the ravages of the bookworm 
in the library by the use of some mercurial preparation, 
Sydney declared it to be Humphry Davy's opinion that the 
air would become charged with mercury, and the whole 
family salivated. " I shall see Allen," said he, " some day 
with his tongue hanging out, speechless, and shall take the 
opportunity to stick a few principles into him." Abraham 
Hayward tells how one day Sydney hurried to her Ladyship 
with the model of a fire escape, the efficacy of which he 
guaranteed, provided the escaping person were first reduced 
to a state of nudity. He had a clerical friend, he told her, 
who was haunted, like herself, by the fear of fire, and who 
had provided himself with this admirable invention. One 
night he was awakened by a violent knocking and ringing at 

* " Memoir and Letters of the Rev. Sydney Smith," 2 Vols. (1855), Vol. II., 
PP- 473. 474- 

189 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

his door, and, supposing the house to be on fire, he threw 
off his nightshirt and instantly let himself down by the 
apparatus, only to find, however, when it set him down on the 
doorstep, that his wife and daughters, who had been kept 
late at a ball, were knocking and ringing to be let in. 1 And 
there are more stories of a similar character, most of them, 
however, only exhibiting Sydney's superabundant humour 
and high spirits, which, as Princess Liechtenstein tells us, 
kept even the servants of Holland House in fits of laughter. 

Lady Holland was ambitious that her husband should take 
a prominent part in the government of his country. Whether 
this were entirely disinterested, or whether it were only 
another phase of that love of power which, as we have seen, 
the eminent physician, Sir Henry Holland, diagnosed as her 
most prominent characteristic, may be a matter for difference 
of opinion. Her house was naturally the social rallying- 
point for the chiefs of the Whig party. As early as 1802 we 
find it noted in the journal of Lord Hobart (afterwards Lord 
Auckland) that she was " deep in political intrigue and 
means for the preservation of peace to make it necessary 
that Fox should be in power." On the collapse of Lord 
Goderich's coalition Ministry, in 1828, she asked Lord John 
Russell, as Croker reports, why Lord Holland should not be 
Secretary for Foreign Affairs ; and Lord John is said to 
have quietly replied, " Why, they say, ma'am, that you open 
all Lord Holland's letters, and the Foreign Ministers might 
not like that." 2 About the same time Jekyll wrote to his 
sister-in law : — 

" Lady Holland is the only dissatisfied Minister out of office. She 
counted upon sailing down daily with her long-tailed blacks and 
ancient, crane-necked chariot to sit with Holland at the Secretary's 
office, to administer the affairs of Europe, and make Sydney Smith 
a bishop. As for him " (Lord H.), " he never cared twopence about the 
whole job." 3 

1 " Sketches of Eminent Statesmen," Vol. II., p. 214. 

2 " Croker Papers," Vol. I., p. 400. 

3 Jekyll, p. 176. 

190 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

Lord Holland, as is well known, was always both a 
prominent and a consistent member of the Whig party. He 
held office as Lord Privy Seal in the " Cabinet of all the 
Talents " in 1806. At the time of the Reform Bill he was 
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster ; and whether it be 
true or not (as Greville says it was in July, 1834) that " the 
Hollands think of nothing on earth but how they may best 
keep the Duchy," it is certainly the fact that he did keep it, 
with but one short interval, until his death in 1840. Jekyll's 
remarks, however, must always be taken cum grano salis and 
as a mixture of more or less humorous and malicious 
exaggeration. In 1833 he writes again : — 

" Lord Palmerston is to be congratulated, for he has got Lady 
Holland for his neighbour in Stanhope Street. With her usual spirit 
of domination and restlessness, she has seized and possessed herself of 
her poor, quiet son-in-law's mansion for Cabinet dinners ; and most 
likely will attempt to enthrone herself at the head of the table, and 
suggest secret measures for the conduct of Ministers in Spain, Portugal, 
and Belgium." 1 

Undoubtedly Lady Holland, as a hostess, was of immense 
service to the Whig party ; and many besides Gifford must 
have wished that they could only " get up a Holland House 
on the Tory side of the question." But Greville and others 
bear most emphatic testimony to the fact that, while her 
society was naturally and inevitably of a particular political 
colour, Lady Holland never encouraged any fierce philippics, 
to say nothing of ribaldry, against political opponents, and 
made it one of her chief objects to establish " such a tone of 
moderation and general toleration that no person of any 
party, opinion, profession, or persuasion might feel any 
difficulty in coming to her house, and she took care that no 
one who did come should ever have reason to complain of 
being offended or annoyed, still less shocked or insulted, 
under her roof." 

Several of Lady Holland's guests have recorded their 

1 Jekyll, p. 230. 

191 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

impressions of the society at Holland House. The Ameri- 
can George Ticknor when he first came to London, in 1819, 
found there, and in the Hollands' temporary quarters in St. 
James's Square, " a literary society not to be equalled in 
Europe." His brief but bright little sketches of some of the 
notabilities he met are all too few. Sir James Mackintosh 
is described as precise and rather "made up" in manners 
and conversation ; Sydney Smith as a man of about fifty, 
corpulent though not gross, and liable to be mistaken at first 
sight for merely a gay, easy gentleman, careless of everything 
but the pleasures of conversation and society. But further 
acquaintance discloses a fund of good sense, sound judgment, 
and accurate reasoning, a humour giving such grace to his 
argument that it comes with the charm of wit, and a wit so 
appropriate that its sallies are often logic in masquerade. 
Brougham looks about thirty-eight, is tall, thin, and rather 
awkward, with plain and not very expressive countenance 
and inferior manners. At first, or on common topics, nobody 
could seem more commonplace; but when any subject excited 
him the listener became instantly aware that he was con- 
versing with no ordinary man. 1 During his second visit to 
England, fifteen or more years later, Ticknor frequently 
dined at Holland House, when, he says, " Lady Holland, I 
really think, made an effort to be agreeable, and she certainly 
has power to be so when she chooses ; but I think I could 
never like her." 2 It was a pleasure to him, however, to dine 
in that grand old Gilt Room, with its two ancient, deep fire- 
places, and to hear Lord Holland's genial talk. Two things 
seem to have struck him particularly : firstly, the freedom 
with which the company, including Ministers, criticised the 
King ; and secondly, the simple manner in which the Prime 
Minister behaved and was treated. The company on one 
occasion included Earl Grey, Lord and Lady Cowper, Lord 
Minto, the Lord Advocate Murray, and Lord Melbourne. 

1 Ticknor, Vol. I., pp. 218 — 220. 
a Ibid., Vol. II., p. 144. 

192 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

He thought it singular that the dinner was not delayed a 
moment for Lord Melbourne, although his sister, Lady 
Cowper, had assured Lady Holland that he would certainly 
come. " Even, at last, when he came in, so little notice was 
taken of him that, though he sat opposite to me — the party 
was very small, and at a round table — I did not perceive his 
arrival, or suspect who he was until I was introduced to him 
some moments afterwards." He also adds that, if he had not 
known Melbourne to be the Prime Minister, he would never 
have suspected that any burden of state lay on his shoulders. 1 
Readers of Sir George Trevelyan's "Life of Macaulay" 
will remember a number of references to the house, the 
hostess, and the guests in the historian's letters to his 
sister. His first meeting with Lady Holland was at a crush 
at Lansdowne House in May, 1831, when, as he was shaking 
hands with Sir James Macdonald, he heard a command 
behind them, " Sir James, introduce me to Mr. Macaulay." 

" We turned [he writes], and there sate a large, bold-looking 
woman, with the remains of a fine person, and the air of Queen 
Elizabeth. ' Macaulay,' said Sir James, ' let me present you to Lady 
Holland.' Then was her Ladyship gracious beyond description, and 
asked me to dine and take a bed at Holland House next Tuesday." 2 

During the following three years, until his departure for 
India, Macaulay was one of the most conspicuous figures 
in Lady Holland's distinguished circle. On one occasion he 
relates having a long talk with her Ladyship in the drawing- 
room about the antiquities of the house and about the 
purities of the English language, wherein, he says, she con- 
sidered herself a critic. " Constituency " she thought an 
odious word, and she objected to " talented," " influential," 
and " gentlemanly," the last-named being a word from the 
use of which she could never break Sheridan, although he 
allowed it to be wrong. Macaulay treated her to a disserta- 
tion on the history of the word " talents," which he held to 

1 Ticknor, Vol. I., pp. 338, 339. 2 Macaulay, "Life," p. 148. 

N.D. 193 O 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

have been first used as a metaphor taken from the parable in 
the New Testament, and to have gradually passed from the 
vocabulary of divinity into common use. She seemed sur- 
prised at this theory, never having, so far as he could judge, 
even heard of the parable of the talents. And he adds, " I 
did not tell her, though I might have done so, that a person 
who professes to be a critic of the delicacies of the English 
language ought to have the Bible at his fingers' ends." x 
However, he admitted her to be a woman of considerable 
talent and great literary acquirements ; and from the verdict 
of such a judge there could be no appeal. On another occa- 
sion, when inspecting the portraits in the library, he came 
upon one of Lady Holland painted some thirty years pre- 
viously, and declared he could have cried to see the change, 
for she must have been a most beautiful woman. When it 
was announced, in January, 1834, that Macaulay had been 
appointed a member of the Supreme Council of India, he 
had a most extraordinary scene with her Ladyship. 

" If she had been as young and handsome as she was thirty years 
ago, she would have turned my head. She was quite hysterical about 
my going ; paid me such compliments as I cannot repeat ; cried, raved, 
called me ' Dear, dear Macaulay. You are sacrificed to your family. 
I see it all. You are too good for them. They are always making 
a tool of you : last session about the slaves, and now sending you to 
India.'" 2 

She not only talked like this to Macaulay himself, it 
appears, but stormed at the Ministers for letting him go, 
and was so violent one day at dinner that Lord Holland 
could not command himself and broke out, " Don't talk 
such nonsense, my lady. What the devil ! Can we tell a 
gentleman who has a claim upon us that he must lose his 
only chance of getting an independency in order that he 
may come to talk to you in an evening ? " 3 

Perhaps the best general notion of the brilliant talk that 

1 Macaulay, " Life," pp. 150, 151. 2 Ibid., p. 255. 

3 Ibid., p. 256. 

194 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

was usually to be heard at Holland House is to be obtained 
from some of the entries in Greville's diary, although 
the diarist admits that it sometimes made him feel uncom- 
fortable, because painfully conscious of his own deficiencies. 
In September, 1834, he jotted down the heads of the literary 
talk at dinner one day, when Spring Rice and his son, 
Melbourne, Palmerston, Allen, and Bobus Smith were of 
the party : — 

"They talked of Taylor's new poem, ' Philip van Artevelde.' Melbourne 
had read and admired it. The Preface, he said, was affected and foolish ; 
the poem itself very superior to anything in Milman. There was one 
fine idea in ' The Fall of Jerusalem ' — that of Titus, who felt himself pro- 
pelled by an irresistible impulse, like that of the Greek dramatists, 
whose fate is the great agent always pervading their dramas. They 
held Wordsworth cheap, except Spring Rice, who was enthusiastic 
about him. Holland thought Crabbe the greatest genius of modern 
poets. Melbourne said he degraded every subject. None of them had 
known Coleridge ; his lectures were very tiresome, but he is a poet of 
great merit." 

The talk then diverged to other matters. Melbourne told 
a story about Irving calling on him to remonstrate against 
the prohibition of preaching in the streets. Lord Holland 
related some anecdotes of Lord North and the Duke of 
Richmond, etc. After dinner literature came up again, and 
they discussed the work of women authors, finding few chefs- 
d'auvres and admitting only Madame de Sevigne, Madame 
de Stael, and Sappho into the first class, though Lady 
Holland was for the exclusion of Madame de Stael. Mrs. 
Somerville was admitted to be great in the exact sciences, 
and Miss Austen's novels, if not in the first rank, were allowed 
to be excellent. By-and-by the talk got round to German 
literature, and Melbourne told the following story, which may 
remind the reader of a somewhat similar one which has since 
obtained currency in connection with Robert Browning : — 

" Klopstock had a sect of admirers in Germany. Some young students 
made a pilgrimage from Gottingen to Hamburg, where Klopstock lived 
in his old age, to ask him the meaning of a passage in one of his works 

195 ° 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

which they could not understand. He looked at it, and then said he 
could not recollect what it was that he meant when he wrote it, but 
that he knew it was the finest thing he ever wrote, and they could not 
do better than devote their lives to the discovery of its meaning." 1 

Macaulay, in his essay on Lord Holland, has a fine passage 
on " that venerable chamber, in which all the antique gravity 
of a college library was so singularly blended with all that 
female grace and wit could devise to embellish a drawing- 
room," and draws attention to the peculiar character which 
belonged to that circle, in which every talent and accom- 
plishment, every art and science, had its place, where one 
might hear " the last debate discussed in one corner, and the 
last comedy of Scribe in another, while Wilkie gazed with 
modest admiration on Sir Joshua's Baretti, while Mackintosh 
turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a quotation, while 
Talleyrand related his conversations with Barras at the 
Luxembourg or his ride with Larmes over the field of 
Austerlitz." Macaulay and everybody else, however, thought 
that when Lord Holland died, in 1840, the society of Holland 
House would be broken up entirely, making, as Greville put 
it, a vacuum in society which nothing could supply, and, 
in literal truth, eclipsing the gaiety of nations. But they 
reckoned without their hostess ; and Greville was forced to 
admit, when he dined at Holland House in 1841, that 
everything was exactly as it used to be. He wished that a 
shorthand writer could have been there to take down the 
conversation, for it was not only curious in itself, but curiously 
illustrative, he thought, of the character of the performers. 
Macaulay was there; and, in the absence of the wished-for 
shorthand writer, Greville ventures on a condensed report of 
his share in the conversation : — 

" Before dinner some mention was made of the portraits of the 
Speakers in the Speaker's house, and I asked how far they went back. 
Macaulay said he was not sure, but certainly as far as Sir Thomas 
More. ' Sir Thomas More ? ' said Lady Holland. ' I did not know he 

1 Greville, Part I., Vol. III., pp. 126 — 130. 
196 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

had been Speaker.' ' Oh, yes,' said Macaulay ; ' don't you remember 
when Cardinal Wolsey came down to the House of Commons and More 
was in the chair ? ' And then he told the whole of that well-known 
transaction, and all More had said. At dinner, amongst a variety of 
persons and subjects, principally ecclesiastical — for Melbourne loves all 
sorts of theological talk — we got upon India and Indian men of emi- 
nence, proceeding from Gleig's ' Life of Warren Hastings,' which 
Macaulay said was the worst book that ever was written ; and then 
the name of Sir Thomas Munro came uppermost. Lady Holland did 
not know why Sir Thomas Munro was so distinguished, when Macaulay 
explained all that he had ever said, done, written, or thought, and 
indicated his claim to the title of a great man, till Lady Holland got 
bored with Sir Thomas, told Macaulay she had had enough of him, and 
would have no more. This would have dashed and silenced an ordinary 
talker, but to Macaulay it was no more than replacing a book on its 
shelf, and he was as ready as ever to open on any other topic. It 
would be impossible to follow and describe the various mazes of con- 
versation, all of which he threaded with an ease that was always 
astonishing and instructive, and generally interesting and amusing. 
When we went upstairs we got upon the Fathers of the Church. Allen 
asked Macaulay if he had read much of the Fathers. He said, ' Not 
a great deal.' He had read Chrysostom when he was in India ; that 
is, he had turned over the leaves, and for a few months had read him 
for two or three hours every morning before breakfast. ' I remember 
a sermon,' he said, • of Chrysostom's in praise of the Bishop of 
Antioch ' ; and then he proceeded to give us the substance of this 
sermon, till Lady Holland got tired of the Fathers, again put her 
extinguisher on Chrysostom as she had done on Munro ; and, with a 
sort of derision, and as if to have the pleasure of puzzling Macaulay, 
she turned to him and said, ' Pray, Macaulay, what was the origin of 
a doll P When were dolls first mentioned in history ? ' Macaulay was, 
however, just as much up to the dolls as he was to the Fathers, and 
instantly replied that the Roman children had their dolls, which they 
offered up to Venus when they grew older, and quoted Persius for 

Veneri donates a virgine pnppa, 

and I have not the least doubt, if he had been allowed to proceed, he 
would have told us who was the chevenix of Rome, and the name of the 
first baby that ever handled a doll." 1 

From this we may get some faint impression of what the 
society and the conversation at Holland House continued to 
be after Lord Holland's death. And even after Lady Holland 

1 Greville, Part II., Vol. I., pp. 367 — 370. 
197 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

had ceased to reign there, her dinners in South Street were 
still the most agreeable in London. Sir Henry Holland 1 
remembered one in October, 1845 — the last she ever gave — 
when Thiers and Palmerston met, as he believed, for the 
first time, and at her table smothered the angry feelings 
generated by prior diplomacy. And to the last, as another 
observer testifies, " with a voice retaining its girlish sweetness, 
she welcomed every guest, invited or casual, with the old 
cordiality and queenly grace." 

If Sir Henry Holland, who, besides being a physician, was 
a trained psychologist, found Lady Holland difficult to 
describe, it is small wonder that she appears to us a highly 
complex and puzzling character. From first to last nobody 
ever expected Lady Holland to do anything whatever in 
the conventional way. Rogers, for instance, tells us of the 
characteristically odd manner in which she announced the 
death of Charles James Fox to those relatives and intimate 
friends who were sitting in a room near his bed-chamber, 
waiting to hear that he had breathed his last. She merely 
walked through the room with her apron thrown over her 
head. 2 Her unconventional, though highly successful, regula- 
tion of her dinner-parties has already been abundantly 
exemplified. It has also been shown that while capricious 
and tyrannical, and exhibiting a mischievous delight in pro- 
voking, and sometimes even insulting, her friends, she was 
yet, at the same time, eager to do the same persons some 
kindness or valuable service. She seems to have cared little 
for her own children, but to have been capable of strong and 
lasting friendship for certain other persons whose characters 
she respected ; and she invariably showed remarkable kind- 
ness to her servants. Although notorious as a Freethinker, 
she never tolerated any irreligious talk in her house. She 
was superstitious to a degree : would not set out on a 
journey on a Friday for any consideration ; had all the 

1 Sir Henry Holland, " Recollections," p. 233. 

2 " Table Talk," pp. 96, 97. 

198 



ELIZABETH, LADY HOLLAND 

windows closed and candles lighted whenever there was a 
thunderstorm, and even, so it is said, dressed up her maid in 
her own clothes to attract the thunderbolt intended for 
herself; was frightened out of her wits when the cholera 
came as near as Glasgow ; and habitually worried herself lest 
her unpleasant dreams should come true. Yet in her last 
illness she faced death with a philosophic calmness which 
astonished all who knew her. And she managed to astonish 
her friends, in another way, even after her death, for when 
her will was opened it was found 1 that while Babington, 
her medical attendant, received an annuity, while Macaulay, 
Luttrell, and other of her distinguished friends received 
legacies of varying amounts, while all her servants were more 
or less amply provided for, her children and grandchildren 
were all but ignored. The greater part of her landed pro- 
perty, estimated to be worth about £1,500 a year, was left to 
Lord John Russell, who did not want it, for life ; and to her 
daughter, Lady Lilford, who did want it, she left nothing 
at all. Few women, even with the aids of wealth, beauty, 
and a title, could have righted themselves with society as 
she did after figuring in a notorious divorce case. Fewer 
still, though with the most impeccable record, would ever 
have assumed such privileges as she did, or, if they had, 
would have found the world so docile in submitting to their 
vagaries. Selfish, yet generous ; irreligious, yet super- 
stitious; whimsical, provoking, rude, yet obliging and con- 
siderate ; an unnatural mother, yet a staunch friend ; 
capricious and tyrannical, yet always fascinating, Lady 
Holland was, as Greville well says, "a very strange 
woman," a character difficult even for those who knew 
her intimately to describe, — impossible, perhaps, for those 
who have not known her at all. 

1 Gentleman's Magazine, 1846, Part I., p. 91. 



199 




Abraham Tucker ok Betchworth Castle. 

From an engraving 



VI 



A METAPHYSICAL HUMORIST— ABRAHAM 
TUCKER 



VI 



A METAPHYSICAL HUMORIST— ABRAHAM 
TUCKER 

It may be confidently assumed that few modern readers 
have so much as heard of Abraham Tucker by name, to say 
nothing of having read the seven stout octavo volumes, 
entitled "The Light of Nature Pursued," to the composition 
of which he devoted nearly twenty years of his life. Little 
as the general reader of to-day, or, for that matter, of his 
own day, may have heard of him, however, Tucker exercised a 
very considerable influence over the minds of certain thinkers 
and writers, who had much to do with shaping the current 
philosophical and theological thought of their time. To 
name two or three only, Paley, in the Preface to his " Moral 
and Political Philosophy," candidly owned how much he was 
indebted to " The Light of Nature," and said that he had 
found in it more original thinking and observation on the 
several subjects taken in hand than in any other work, " not 
to say than in all others put together " ; Archbishop Whately 
endeavoured to condense some of his " most valuable " 
reasonings into the notes and appendix to his " Bampton 
Lectures " ; and Sir James Mackintosh, in his "Dissertation 
on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy," not only praised the 
work for its careful observation, original reflection, and 
unrivalled felicity of illustration, but instanced the neglect 
of it as "the strongest proof of the disinclination of the 
English people ... to metaphysical philosophy." 

It may be admitted, perhaps, that the English people in 
this instance were not without some show of excuse, for the 

203 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

advertisement of a philosophico-theological treatise in seven 
large volumes is certainly calculated to appal any but the 
most voracious of readers. Yet it is impossible to turn over 
the pages of any one of these seven volumes without having the 
eye arrested by some pregnant sentence, or felicitous illustra- 
tion, or quaint conceit, such as would induce any discerning 
reader to cultivate a closer acquaintance with their author. 
And the reader who did go on to make such further acquaint- 
ance, although he might not be disposed to accept, or even 
to attempt to master, Tucker's system in its entirety, would 
find so much that is illuminating on various problems in 
psychology, in ethics, and in theology, as well as so much 
sound common-sense in the author's practical application of 
his ideas to life, that he would find it difficult to understand 
how so rich a mine of suggestive thought and brilliant 
illustration can have been allowed to lie so long in obscurity. 
And in addition to this, or rather interwoven with it, as in 
the essays of Montaigne, the reader would likewise find 
a delineation of the author's own character, showing him to 
have been a man of an exceptionally happy temperament, a 
shrewd and prudent country gentleman, amiable and 
benevolent in conduct, serene and cheerful in temper, no less 
distinguished from the squirearchy of his day by an uncon- 
querable aversion both to fox-hunting and to~ place-hunting, 
and by a devotion to plain living and high thinking, than he 
is from most of the philosophers of that or any other day 
by the possession of a rich vein of quaint and quiet humour, 
which runs through and colours all his speculations, on even 
the highest and most sacred themes. 

All that is known of the circumstances of Tucker's 
uneventful life might almost be contained on a half-sheet of 
notepaper, and we may learn more about him from the 
personal details with which he occasionally illustrates a 
philosophical problem than from the meagre biographical 
sketch which his grandson prefixed to the 1805 edition of 
" The Light of Nature." He was born in London on 

204 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

September 2nd, 1705, and was the only son of a rich City 
merchant of Somersetshire extraction, who died during the 
boy's infancy. He was left to the guardianship of Sir Isaac 
Tillard, a maternal uncle, of whom Tucker always spoke 
with affection and gratitude, declaring that it was to his 
uncle's bright example that he owed every principle of 
honour, benevolence, and liberality that he possessed. We 
may presume, though he does not tell us so, that his 
characteristic whimsicality was also derived from the same 
source. At any rate, it is significant that the only record we 
have of this uncle is that whenever young Abraham was 
called upon to write a periodical letter to some of his other 
relations Sir Isaac invariably referred him to the Apostle 
Paul as the best model for epistolary composition. In 1721, 
after leaving a school at Bishop's Stortford, Tucker was 
entered a gentleman commoner at Merton College, Oxford. 
While there he devoted most of his time to mathematical 
and metaphysical studies, but he also made himself a master 
of the French and Italian languages, and likewise acquired 
considerable proficiency in music, for which he possessed 
much natural talent. Three years later he was entered at 
the Middle Temple, where he acquired such a knowledge of 
law as enabled him both to conduct the management of his 
own affairs, and to give valuable advice to his friends and 
neighbours on occasion, though he was never called to the 
Bar. In 1727 he purchased Betchworth Castle, near Dorking, 
together with a large landed estate, and immediately set about 
acquiring the information necessary for its proper manage- 
ment. It is characteristic of him that he committed to 
paper a number of observations on this subject which he had 
selected from various authors, both ancient and modern, 
together with remarks which he had made himself or had 
collected from the experience of his neighbours and tenants. 
In 1736, at the age of thirty-one, he married, his wife being 
Dorothy, daughter of Edward Barker, of East Betchworth, 
Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer. By this lady, with whom 

205 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

he lived in great happiness until her death, eighteen years 
afterwards, he had two daughters : Dorothea Maria, who 
married Sir Henry Paulet St. John, Bart., of Dogmersfield 
Park, in Hampshire, and Judith, who survived her father, 
inherited his estates, and died unmarried in 1795. Both his 
wife and his daughters are occasionally mentioned in " The 
Light of Nature," always by way of illustrating some 
philosophical or moral point under discussion, the wife being 
invariably referred to as " Euridice," and the daughters as 
"Serena" and " Sparkle." In the sixth chapter of his first 
volume, for example, when arguing against Locke that desire 
is not constantly accompanied with uneasiness, he illustrates 
his point as follows : — 

" I may say with Mr. Dryden, ' Old as I am, for lady's love unfit, the 
power of beauty I remember yet.' I still bear in mind the days of my 
courtship, which in the language of all men is called a season of desire ; 
yet, unless I strangely forget myself, it proved to me a season of satisfac- 
tion too. But, says Mr. Locke, it is better to marry than to burn, where 
we may see what it is that chiefly drives men into a conjugal life. This, 
for aught I know, might be the motive with some men, who, being of 
an unsociable and undomestic turn, can see nothing good in matrimony, 
but submit to it as a lesser evil delivering them from a greater. And 
I can excuse an old bachelor for entertaining so despicable a notion of 
a state he never experienced the pleasures of himself. Others, it may 
be, make their engagements too hastily, and then would break them off 
again through the shame of doing a foolish thing, tilLthe smart of their 
burnings becomes intolerable, and drives them headlong into the matri- 
monial net. But this, thanks to my stars, was not my case : my own 
judgment, upon mature deliberation, and the approbation of my friends, 
gave leave for desire to take its course. I might feel some scorchings 
in my youthful days when it would have been imprudent to quench 
them, and while the object of desire lay at an undiscernible distance : 
but as the prospect grew nearer, and desire had licence to begin its 
career, it had no more the fierceness of a furnace, but became a gentle 
flame, casting forth a pleasing, exhilarating warmth. Perhaps I might 
meet with some little rubs in the way, that gave me disturbance : if 
my fair one spoke a civil word to any tall, well-bred young fellow, I 
might entertain some idle apprehensions lest he should supplant me. 
When I took a hackney coach to visit her, if we were jammed in between 
the carts, perhaps I might fret and fume, and utter many an uneasy 
' Pish ' ; but as soon as we got through the stop, though desire abated 

206 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

not, every shadow of uneasiness fled away. As near as I can remember, 
during the whole scene, desire, closely attended by satisfaction, directed 
all my steps, and occupied all my moments : it awaked with me in the 
mqrning, and was the last idea swept away by sleep : it invigorated me 
in business, it heightened my diversions, it gave me life when in com- 
pany, and entertained me with delightful reflections when alone. Nor 
did it fail of accompanying me to the altar, where, laying aside its 
sprightliness and gaiety, as unsuitable to the solemnity of the occasion, 
it became more calm and decent, exhibiting the prospect of an agreeable 
companion, who should double the enjoyments and alleviate the troubles 
of life ; who should ease me from the burthen of household cares, and 
assist me in bringing up a rising family ; whose conversation should be 
a credit to me abroad, and a continual feast to me at home. Nor yet 
did possession put an end to desire, which found fresh fuel to keep it 
alive from time to time, in mutual intercourses of kindness and hearty 
friendship, in communication of interests, counsels and sentiments ; and 
would often feed upon the merest trifles. How often, having picked 
up some little piece of news abroad, has desire quickened my pace to 
prattle over it at home 1 how often, upon hearing of something curious 
in the shops, have I gone to buy it with more pleasure than the keenest 
sportsman goes after his game ! This desire, leading delight hand in 
hand, attended us for many years, still retaining its first vigour, although 
a little altered in shape and complexion ; until my other half was torn 
from me. Then, indeed, desire left me, for it had nothing now to rest 
upon, and with it fled joy, delight, content, and all those under desires 
that used to put me upon the common actions of the day ; for I could 
like nothing, find amusement in nothing, and cared for nothing : and in 
their stead succeeded melancholy, tastelessness, and perpetual restless- 
ness. And though I called in all my philosophy to rescue me from this 
disconsolate condition, it could not relieve me presently, but had a long 
struggle before it could get the better of nature." 

After his grief at his wife's death had somewhat abated 
he collected together all the letters that had passed between 
them at such times as they had been separated from each 
other, transcribed them twice over, and entitling the little 
book thus made " The Picture of Artless Love," gave one 
copy to his late wife's father, and the other, which he retained 
in his own possession, he frequently read to his two daughters. 
It is greatly to be regretted that these letters appear to have 
been either lost or destroyed, as they would undoubtedly 
have furnished us with many more artless revelations of our 

207 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

author's own singular mind and character. Tucker then 
devoted himself to the education of his two girls, being him- 
self their French and Italian tutor, and also instructing them 
in many branches of " science," above all, says his grand- 
son, being careful to instil into their minds the purest 
principles of morality, benevolence, and religion. It was one 
of Tucker's theories that the spirit of emulation and the 
encouragement of vanity were too much in use in the educa- 
tion of the young. He held that it was possible to cultivate 
the desire for excellence without the desire of excelling, a 
nice distinction which everybody cannot be brought to appre- 
ciate. At any rate, he says : — 

" I found no occasion for it with my Serena and Sparkle : on the 
contrary I endeavoured sedulously to pick out every seed as fast as 
sprinkled by any old woman of their acquaintance : and I have the 
pleasure to find they have made as good proficiency in every little 
accomplishment I could give them, have as much reputation in the 
world, and are as well received, even among persons of quality, as I 
could wish." 

Tucker had no turn for politics ; and although frequently 
asked to stand for his county, he always unhesitatingly 
refused. He was remarkable, says his grandson, for absti- 
nence at table, and passed the time which other country 
squires passed over their bottle, or bottles, in walking about 
his estate and getting all the information he could from the 
practical experience of his tenants. When in London, where 
he spent some months every year, he usually arranged his 
walks so as to execute his own commissions ; but if there 
were no business to be done, he would not forego his regular 
exercise, but took a walk from his house in Great James's 
Street to St. Paul's or the Bank, just, as he jocularly observed, 
" to see what it was o'clock." Both in town and country he 
seems to have led a very retired life, and it was apparently 
only amongst his relations and a few old college chums that 
he exhibited his very pretty talent for the socratic method of 
disputation. His amusements were of the simplest kind, and 

208 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

when he wanted a little recreation after a morning's hard 
work at "The Light of Nature," he declared the veriest trifles 
suited him best, such as "lolling out at a window like Miss 
Gawkey, to see the wheelbarrow trundle or the butcher's 
dog carry the tray." At one time he used to play back- 
gammon by himself on Sundays, one hand against the other, 
because he would not play with anybody else; not that he 
thought it wrong to do so, but because people might tattle 
about it, and his example be used to authorise things more 
mischievous. He was one of Bishop Sherlock's flock, he 
tells us, whose discourses he heard with much pleasure, and, 
he hopes, emolument. His religion was of the sober and 
temperate order, and he was greatly offended at some of the 
extravagancies of the Methodist revival. 

" Selfishness and insensibility to all around us seem to be made the 
characteristics of high perfection in Religion : our fellow-creatures of 
a different language, or make, or way of thinking, or sentiment on some 
speculative point, are not thought worth our concern ; but so we our- 
selves, together with a few of the same orthodox stamp, be safe, the 
devil take all the world beside, as deserving victims of a divine wrath 
never to be appeased. For rny part, I cannot help being shocked to 
hear with what calmness the most pious people will talk of the innumer- 
able multitudes that are to perish in everlasting flames ; and with what 
glee the Methodists regale upon the thought that at the day of Judgment 
the rich and mighty of this world shall be dragged by devils, for White 
field and his mob of carmen and basket-women to trample underfoot.' 

It is obvious that a man of this temperament, circum- 
stanced as he was, would have abundance of leisure, which 
he would be desirous of turning to some intellectual account ; 
and it occurred to Tucker that, as his thoughts had always 
tended " towards searching into the foundations and measures 
of right and wrong," he might as well put into black and 
white, whether for publication or not, the scheme of a recon- 
ciliation between religion and reason which had gradually 
been taking shape in his mind. Accordingly in 1756, when 
just over fifty years of age, he began what proved to be a 
very extensive literary undertaking, for it afforded continuous 

n.d. 209 P 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

occupation for the remaining eighteen years of his life. 
Whatever may have been the motive which actuated him in 
so doing, it cannot have been literary ambition, for when, 
after seven years' labour, he published, by way of specimen, 
the section on " Free-will," and then, two years after that, 
the first four volumes of his growing treatise, both books 
were issued under the pseudonym of " Edward Search " ; 
and it was not until some four years after his death, when 
the remaining three volumes were published by his daughter, 
that the real name of their author became known. Neither 
would the reception of the first four volumes have encouraged 
a man actuated by literary ambition to devote nine more 
years to the completion of the work, for they were reviled 
by the reviewers, neglected by the public, and disparaged by 
his own friends. The probability seems to be that he wrote 
primarily to please himself, finding pleasure in putting into 
shape and order his own abounding thoughts and fancies, 
and thinking — as, in fact, he acknowledges to have been the 
case — that by so doing he would clear up some dubious points 
in his own mind. In his introduction, he incidentally refers 
to "my reader, if I have one"; but as the work proceeded 
he seems to have anticipated an audience that would be fit, 
though few, and that what he modestly called his " rude 
sketches " might be the cause of some completer and more 
finished production "which may obtain general currency 
and do signal service among mankind when Search and his 
embryo work are clean forgotten." To a certain extent this 
has happened, for, as Sir Fitzjames Stephen remarked, 
Paley's " Moral Philosophy " is little more than an adapta- 
tion of one limb of Tucker's book. At the same time, and 
though dealing largely with metaphysics and psychology, 
Tucker never seems to have had the technical expert in his 
mind's eye, but to have shaped his arguments and chosen 
his illustrations so that they might be readily comprehended 
by — the expression is his own — " the first man you may meet 
in the street." 

210 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

As already noted, Tucker had resolutely cut himself off 
from political society. It is even more remarkable that there 
is no trace of his ever having come into personal contact 
with any of the eminent authors who were his contemporaries, 
hardly even a trace of familiarity with any of their writings. 
The principal works of Pope, Johnson, Goldsmith, Swift, 
Defoe, Gray, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett all appeared 
during his lifetime ; but beyond the occasional quotation of 
a line from Pope's " Essay on Man " there is throughout the 
whole of these seven discursive volumes scarcely the remotest 
reference to contemporary general literature. Neither is 
there — and this is more curious still — any reference to 
important contemporary speculative works bearing on the 
subject of his own inquiries. Butler's " Analogy," Hume's 
" Treatise," Reid's " Inquiry," and Adam Smith's " Moral 
Sentiments " all appeared between the time of Tucker's 
leaving Oxford and the publication of the first four volumes 
of " The Light of Nature " ; but not one of these works is 
even casually mentioned ; and, except for some strictures on 
Hartley and on Bishop Berkeley, it might be assumed that 
Tucker had as deliberately eschewed the philosophical and 
the polite literature of his time as he had its politics. In his 
concluding chapter he apologises for the style and com- 
position of the work on the ground that, having lived a 
retired life and conversed mainly with people who had other 
ways of employing their thoughts, he had been " forced to 
break through the briars of abstraction " by himself. He 
says, what the reader would certainly never have suspected, 
that he was wanting in readiness of thought and expression ; 
but when he confesses that he found great difficulty in 
digesting his matter, in drawing out the threads of argumen- 
tation, and in preventing them from entangling, we may 
readily believe him. But he never seems to have become 
wearied or disheartened on his solitary journey. Even if his 
writings should be of no benefit to anybody else, he declares, 
they have been of benefit to him, for at the east they have 

211 p 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

kept him pleasantly employed for many hours which other- 
wise might have passed vacant or irksome. When, in 1771, 
cataract in both eyes made him totally blind, he not only 
bore the affliction with resignation and cheerfulness, but, by 
means of a little machine of his own contrivance to guide the 
hand, managed to write out the concluding chapters of his 
work with sufficient legibility for them to be readily tran- 
scribed by an amanuensis. It is a significant trait of Tucker's 
character, as Hazlitt well says, that he nowhere makes the 
slightest allusion to this distressing circumstance. It also says 
something for his pet theories of education, as well as for the 
character of the young lady herself, that his daughter Judith 
not only became his amanuensis and transcribed the whole 
of his voluminous work for the press, but also learned enough 
Greek to be able to read to her father, in order that his 
blindness might not deprive him of the solace of his favourite 
classical authors. He lived long enough to complete " The 
Light of Nature," though not to give it the final revision 
which he had intended. On looking it over, he said, he found 
the performance fall short of the idea he had had at starting, 
and perhaps his design required a more expert and masterly 
hand ; but having done his best, he will rest content. 

"The women generally end their letters with,-' Excuse mistakes 
through haste ' ; and many male authors affect to give you a hint that 
they could have done better if they had a mind or would have allowed 
themselves more leisure : but I happen not to be of a humour to desire 
excuse for mistakes through haste ; I had rather the reader should stand 
satisfied of my care and honest zeal in his service though at the expense 
of my abilities, and believe where he sees a blemish that I should have 
done better if I had known how. For of how little importance soever 
this attempt may prove, it seemed the most important I was qualified 
to undertake ; and I have laid down all along that it is not so much the 
significancy of the part assigned, as the just and diligent performance 
of it, that merits a plaudit." 

Tucker died in 1774, at the age of sixty-nine ; and the three 
concluding volumes of his treatise were published by his 
daughter four years afterwards. 

212 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

It is by no means easy to give within a moderate compass 
an intelligible account of Tucker's work. The problem which 
he seems to have proposed to himself was this : Given such 
a creature as man in such a world as the present, what can 
we learn by the light of nature alone concerning our rela- 
tion to the universe, and what sort of guidance will this 
light afford us in the practical conduct of life ? His answer 
to the problem occupies no less than 3,951 octavo pages ; 
and as he set out without any very definite plan, worked out 
every corollary with immense elaboration, repeated himself 
by discussing the same subjects over and over again in a 
slightly varying form, and overlaid the whole with such an 
abundance of illustrative comment that sometimes one 
cannot see the wood for the trees, it is obvious that we 
must limit ourselves to one or two characteristic points of 
the work. 

Tucker proclaims himself to be a follower of Locke, 
although occasionally he ventures to disagree with his 
master; and he adopts unreservedly Hartley's principle of 
association, which, however, he renames " translation." 
All our knowledge, such as it is, is derived from sensation and 
reflection, whence by "translation" we get our "opinions, 
assents, and judgments." There are two kinds of judgment : 
appearance, which is the judgment of sense; and opinion, 
which is the judgment of understanding; both unfortunately 
very apt to be wrong ! Yet every judgment, while it is our 
present judgment, " carries the same face of veracity " ; and 
the highest pitch to which assurance ever rises is "when we 
can form no conception how things can possibly be other- 
wise than as we apprehend them." It does not follow, 
however, that we may never depend upon such knowledge as 
we have, for, as absolute certainty was not made for man, 
man is so constituted as to do very well without it. Tucker 
quaintly adds that although he is well enough persuaded that 
two and two make four, yet if he were to meet with a person 
of credit, candour, and understanding who should seriously 

213 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

call it in question, he would give him a hearing. According 
to Tucker's psychology, we have two " faculties " only, 
imagination and understanding, the former being the execu- 
tive power and having for the most part the direction of our 
conduct, while the latter is a legislative power, serviceable 
chiefly for putting the suggestions of the other into proper 
" trains." All human action is determined by motives ; and 
what we call the will does not control our motives, but is, 
on the contrary, controlled by them. The great dominant 
motive of human nature is the prospect of what he calls 
" satisfaction," which, being interpreted, means the obtaining 
of pleasure or the avoiding of pain. Men always do that 
" wherein they for the present apprehend the greatest satis- 
faction." Even when they forego pleasures or endure pains, 
they do so for the sake of something which they conceive 
to be more satisfactory. The virtues are described as 
" habits or turns of sentiment inclining spontaneously to 
such points of aim or courses of action as sober reason and 
sound judgment would recommend," and the passions are 
regarded as only a stronger sort of habits acquired in child- 
hood. Honour, fortitude, temperance, justice, and bene- 
volence are all found to rest on a utilitarian basis ; and it is 
altogether by means of "translation" that the base metal 
of selfishness has been transmuted into the pure gold of 
benevolence. The summum bonum is declared to be 
happiness, defined as " the aggregate of satisfactions " ; 
and Tucker does not scruple to recommend the gratification 
of our desires as " the proper business of life." He is careful 
to point out, however, that pleasure, in the vulgar acceptation 
of the word, will not always even please, and that unfor- 
tunately our desires often defeat their own purpose, so that 
their very interest sometimes calls for self-denial ; but in 
itself self-denial is an evil, and its only use is " for inuring 
us to do the same things we did under it without any self- 
denial at all." Most people, he points out, have an entirely 
mistaken notion of pleasure, like the boy who wished to be a 

214 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

king that he might have an officer appointed to swing him 
all day long upon a gate. Moreover, the bulk of mankind 
usually seek after intense pleasures rather than after a con- 
tinuance of gentler amusements, although nothing is more 
certain than that " high delights, like high sauces, if they 
draw no other mischief after them, at least pall the appetite 
for anything else." A selection of such pleasures, he says, 
as are valuable for their fruits and appendages, rather than 
such as delight only in the fruition, most obviously marks 
the difference between a civilised and a barbarous people, 
for the pleasures of pure nature, the gratifications of undis- 
ciplined appetite, are as intense, or perhaps more so, than 
those of refinement. 

" When a child I have been more highly delighted with a coloured 
print bought for a halfpenny, with a ballad tune sung by the coarse- 
piped chambermaid, in reading the dragon of Wautley, in discovering 
a better way of building houses with cards, than ever I was since with 
the finest paintings, the sweetest music, the sublimest poetry, or the 
luckiest thought occurring in the progress of my Chapters : even the 
heights of Philosophy and effusions of grace, if you regard only the 
present moment, are not more transporting than the amusements of 
childhood. Nor do I doubt that the American savages find as strong 
relish in their lumps of flesh with the skin on, taken from the burning 
coals, in their contrivances to catch the beavers, in successes against 
their enemies and seizures of plunder, as we do in our dainties, our 
elegancies, our arts and accomplishments. And after all, perhaps we 
have no greater enjoyments among us than those of eating when we 
are hungry, drinking when we are thirsty, laying down when sleepy, 
or as the second Solomon has pronounced, than scratching where it 
itches." 

All the passions, affections, aversions, habits, etc., have 
their seat in the imagination ; but this faculty, having no 
discrimination, invariably catches at the satisfaction of the 
present moment, and needs perpetual bringing to book by 
reason. But even reason, although able to look forward to 
a larger sum of satisfactions, or greater good, is too short- 
sighted to discern clearly, or make a just computation of, all 
the consequences of action, and is therefore usually obliged 

215 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

to take some rule, the product of her former experience or of 
other people's experience or judgment, for her mark of direc- 
tion, and her ultimate end is therefore very rarely her ultimate 
point of view ; and even when she has fixed upon her point, 
whether ultimate or subordinate, it will avail nothing unless 
she can raise up an appetite or habit to create an immediate 
satisfaction in the prosecution or an uneasiness in the devia- 
tion from it. Man has been wrongly defined as a rational 
animal, says Tucker; he is only sensitivo-rational. And then, 
by way of illustrating the action and interaction of these 
two parts of our constitution, he gives us a peculiarly fine 
and highly wrought simile, after the manner of Plato. It 
will be remembered that in Plato's " Phaedrus " the form of 
the soul is compared to a charioteer and a pair of winged 
steeds, one of- which is mortal, the other immortal. The 
charioteer represents reason, the black horse, an ill-condi- 
tioned animal, who will hardly yield to blow or spur, stands 
for the sensual element in human nature ; and the white 
horse, a noble steed, readily guided by word and admonition 
only, represents the heaven-aspiring and spiritual element in 
humanity. But says Tucker : — 

" I think the mind may be more commodiously compared to a 
traveller riding a single horse, wherein Reason is represented by the 
rider; and Imagination, with all its train of opinions, appetites, and 
habits, by the beast. Everybody sees that the horse does all the work ; 
he carries his master along every step of the journey, directs the motion 
of his own legs in walking, trotting, gallopping, or stepping over a rote, 
makes many by-motions, as whisking the flies with his tail, or playing 
with his bit, all by his own instinct; and if the road lie plain and open, 
without bugbears to affright him, or rich pasture on either hand to 
entice him, he will jog on, although the reins were laid upon his neck, 
or in a well-acquainted road, take the turnings of his own accord. 
Perhaps sometimes he may prove starfish or restive, turning out of the 
way, or running into a pond to drink, maugre all endeavours to prevent 
him ; but this depends greatly upon the discipline he has been used to. 
The office of the rider lies in putting his horse into the proper road, and 
the pace most convenient for the present purpose, guiding and con- 
ducting him as he goes along, checking him when too forward, or 
spurring him when too tardy, being attentive to his motions, never 

2l6 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

dropping the whip nor losing the reins, but ready to interpose instantly 
whenever needful, keeping firm in his seat if the beast behaves unruly, 
observing what passes in the way, the condition of the ground, and 
bearings of the country, in order to take directions therefrom for his 
proceeding. But this is not all he has to do ; he must get his tackling 
in good order, bridle, spurs, and other accoutrements ; he must learn 
to sit well in the saddle, to understand the ways and temper of the 
beast, get acquainted with the roads, and inure himself by practice 
to bear long journeys without fatigue or galling ; he must provide 
provender for his horse, and deal it out in proper quantities ; for if 
weak and jadish, or pampered and gamesome, he will not perform the 
journey well : he must have him well broke, taught all his paces, cured 
of starting, stumbling, running away, and all skittish or sluggish tricks, 
trained to answer the bit and be obedient to the word of command. 
If he can teach him to canter whenever there is a smooth and level 
turf, and stop where the ground lies rugged, of his own accord, it will 
contribute to making riding easy and pleasant ; he may then enjoy the 
prospects around, or think of any business, without interruption to his 
progress. As to the choice of a horse, our rider has no concern with 
that, he must content himself with such as nature and education have 
put into his hands ; but since the spirit of the beast depends much 
upon the usage given him, every prudent man will endeavour to pro- 
portion that spirit to his own strength and skill in horsemanship ; and 
according as he finds himself a good or a bad rider, will wish to have 
his horse sober or mettlesome. For strong passions work wonders 
where there is a stronger force of reason to curb them ; but where this 
is weak, the appetites must be feeble too, or they will lie under no 
control." 

Although the desire of " satisfaction " is the mainspring of 
all our motives, there are a number of other principles of 
human conduct and a number of subsidiary motives which 
require to be taken account of. Most of these motives are 
of the "translated " kind, i.e., so transformed by association 
that what was originally only a means to an end has become 
an end in itself. When we attempt to recollect the induce- 
ments of our conduct, he remarks, there commonly occur, 
instead of them, specious reasons serving to justify it to 
ourselves or to the world ; and he warns us to beware of this 
jugglery and always make sure of knowing what are our 
real motives, for only by the study of motives can we come 
to know ourselves. The foundation of all the virtues is 

217 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

" moral prudence," a quality which he finds it somewhat 
hard to define. Considered from one point of view, it is " a 
disposition of mind to regard distant good equally with 
present pleasure, estimating both according to their real, not 
apparent, magnitude, like the skill we have of discerning a 
grown person twenty yards off to be larger than a child 
sitting in our lap, though the latter take up more room in 
our eye." This is declared to be the most durable possession 
we can have and the very essence of moral wisdom. 
Benevolence, though generally treated by ethical writers as 
a branch of justice, might more appropriately, he thinks, be 
considered as the root from which the other springs ; and he 
proposes to raise it to the rank of a fifth cardinal virtue. 
The pure gold of benevolence is another thing altogether 
from the base metal selfishness, out of which it has been 
"translated." 

" Persons deficient in this quality endeavour to run it down, and 
justify their own narrow views, by alleging that it is only selfishness in 
a particular form : for if the benevolent man does a good-natured thing, 
for his own satisfaction that he finds in it, there is self at bottom, 
for he acts to please himself. 'Where then,' say they, 'is his merit ? 
What is he better than us ? He follows constantly what he likes, and 
so do we : the only difference between us is that we have a different 
taste of pleasure from him.' To take these objections in order, let us 
consider that form in many cases is all in all, the essence of things 
depending thereupon. Fruit, when come to its maturity, or during its 
state of sap in the tree, or of earthy particles in the ground, is the same 
substance all along : beef, whether raw or roasted or putrified, is still 
the same beef, varying only in form : but whoever shall overlook this 
difference of form will bring grievous disorders upon his stomach : so 
then there is no absurdity in supposing selfishness may be foul and 
noisome under one form, but amiable and recommendable under 
another. But we have no need to make this supposition, as we shall 
not admit that acts of kindness, how much soever we may follow our 
own inclination therein, carry any spice of selfishness. Men are led 
into this mistake by laying too much stress upon etymology : for 
selfishness being derived from self, they learnedly infer that whatever 
is done to please one's own inclination, must fall under that appellation, 
not considering that derivatives do not always retain the full latitude 
of their roots. Wearing woollen clothes, or eating mutton, does not 

2l8 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

make a man sheepish, nor does employing himself now and then in 
reading make him bookish : so neither is everything selfish that relates 
to self. If somebody should tell you that such an one was a very 
selfish person, and, for proof of it, give a loug account of his being once 
catched on horseback by a shower, that he took shelter under a tree, 
that he alighted, put on his greatcoat, and was wholly busied in muffling 
himself up, without having a single thought all the while of his wife or 
children, his friends or his country : would you not take it for a banter ? 
or would you think the person or his behaviour could be called selfish 
in any propriety of speech ? What if a man agreeable and obliging in 
company should happen to desire another lump of sugar in his tea to 
please his own palate, would they pronounce him a whit the more 
selfish upon that account ? So that selfishness is not having a regard 
for oneself, but having no regard for anything else." 

His chapter on this subject concludes with an admirable 
passage, which I must refrain from quoting, in which he 
reconciles the existence of this disinterested benevolence 
with his principle of happiness as the ultimate end of action. 
Supposing, in his humorous way, a wise man to be utterly- 
divested of all desires save that of happiness, and that in 
his neighbourhood virtues, vices, tastes, and inclinations of 
every fashion were for sale, like clothes ready-made in the 
shops, he undertakes to show why such a man would choose 
to purchase a suit of benevolence as the most convenient for 
his wearing. Unfortunately, as he admits, these wise people 
are everywhere in a minority ; but if only charity and fellow- 
felling could be made the prevailing humour in the world, it 
would become " as fashionable and engaging to ride as many 
miles upon a public service as after a stinking fox." 

Concerning Tucker's peculiar and eccentric way of illustrat- 
ing his religious conceptions something will have to be said 
presently ; but of his system of natural religion it is 
unnecessary to say more than that it is well enough known as 
Paley's, for it was from " The Light of Nature " that the 
latter borrowed most of his arguments and illustrations, 
including even the famous simile of the watch. There was, 
however, one part of Tucker's treatise of which the 
unimaginative, hard-headed, and lawyer-like archdeacon 

219 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

made no use, upon which, indeed, he probably looked down 
with a mixture of amusement and contempt. Yet it is 
precisely this part of the work which the modern reader will 
in all probability find most curious and suggestive, and in 
which Tucker exhibits himself most unmistakably as a man 
of original genius. Having shown imagination to be so much 
our strongest faculty that the convictions of reason can 
seldom be expected to have much weight or duration until 
they can be represented in sensible images, he was, of course, 
only carrying his own psychological principles into practice 
when, with the object of making the general idea of a con- 
tinued existence in another world less hard of conception, 
he proceeded to develop at great length two hypotheses 
concerning what he called the " vehicular state " and the 
" mundane soul," and to give in the form of a vision a 
detailed description, as by an eye-witness, of the life of the 
soul in a future state. His aim was, he tells us, to represent 
a future state of being which, from all that we know of the 
laws of mind and matter, is at least possible, which is 
certainly innocent of offence, and which, to his mind at any 
rate, appeared to be a great deal more inviting than the 
current representations usually offered from the pulpit. 

For the purpose of his first hypothesis Tucker assumes 
that on the death of the body the spirit does not go out 
naked, but carries away with it a material "vehicle," so small 
as to be invisible and incapable of affecting the finest balance. 
He argues that the smallest conceivable particle of matter 
is capable of containing as great a variety of parts and 
machinery as the whole human body, and that just as 
St. Paul's Cathedral, with all its parts complete, might con- 
ceivably be reduced to the size of a nutshell, so the human 
body, without the destruction of any of its component parts 
or their functions, might be reduced to a size which would be 
imperceptible even under the strongest microscope ; and, in 
case anybody should be disturbed by the idea of being 
reduced to what they might perhaps consider so contemptible 

220 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

a size, he reminds them that the strongest and biggest things 
on earth are by no means the most favoured by nature. 

" A little horse shifts its legs quicker than a tall one ; the vulture and 
the eagle cannot flutter their wings so fast as the sparrow ; nor did you 
ever see a hornet crawl along the table so nimbly as a fly ; and little 
men are generally the quickest in their motions. Imagine a race of 
giants as big as Hampstead-hill, placed on an earth which, with all 
its animals, fruits, corn, trees, and vegetables, should be proportionately 
vast : they might then have the same accommodations as we have, but 
could not find the same uses and convenience in them, by reason of 
the tediousness of their motions. Consider how long they must be at 
dinner ; if they sat down at eight in the morning, they would scarce 
finish their repast by night, having a mile to carry every morsel from 
their plate to their mouths ; when they went to bed, it must take an 
hour to get upstairs, and after having unbuttoned their coat, they must 
give their arm a swing of two or three miles round to pull down the 
sleeve behind ; when they talked it would require four or five seconds 
for their voices to reach one another's ears ; and as it may be supposed 
their mental organs are conformable in size to their bodily, if you 
asked what's o'clock, it might be necessary to consider half an hour 
before they could think of the proper answer. In short, they must 
needs be a slow, solemn, and heavy generation, without any spark of 
wit or liveliness belonging to them. If one of us were migrated into 
their enormous hulks, should we not, think ye, wish ardently to get 
back again into our less than six-foot bodies ? And by parity of reason 
it may be presumed that when delivered from our present cumbersome 
bodies, if we remember anything of our sensations therein, we shall be 
as much rejoiced to find ourselves in a body proportionably less and 
proportionably more alert, wherein we may despatch as much business 
in a minute as we can now in an hour, and perhaps be able to read 
through Guicciardini in the time we are now poring over all the 
nothings in a four-columned newspaper." 

But even this infinitesimal human body would not be small 
enough for Tucker's purpose ; and, as he did not agree with 
Epicurus that nature could not form a reasonable creature 
except in human shape, he supposed these hypothetical 
" vehicles " to be made, not in the form of a man or of any 
other animal, but in the form of a bag ; and he imagined 
them, moreover, to be composed of a substance so flexible 
and so obedient to the will that, whenever required, it could 
be made as soft as a feather or as hard as a bone, or formed 

221 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

into any requisite shape. Even in our present condition, he 
reminds us, we have only one windpipe to talk, to whine, to 
rant, or to scold with. If it were necessary to have a different 
pipe for every articulate sound, our throats must have been 
made bigger than a chamber organ. And just as we are 
now able to cast this single pipe into as many various forms 
as there are tones of voice to be uttered, so in the " vehicular 
state " the whole of our frame might be similarly constituted. 
Vehicular souls, he concludes, will be born into the other 
life as much a blank paper as ever they came into this, and 
will, therefore, require the care of the old inhabitants of the 
State to cherish and educate them ; but although they will 
have no actual remembrance of their life on earth, yet, having 
acuter faculties than ours, they may by application and 
exercise acquire such a dexterity at inferring causes from 
their effects as to discover their own pre-existence, trace out 
all that has happened to them in a former state, be able to 
tell by the manner wherein new-comers arrive who they are 
and whence they come, and even to become acquainted with 
the whole history of mankind. 

" By these marks they may find out a wife, a child, a brother, a 
friend, a neighbour, a compatriot, and (what is more than we could 
do with our faculty of remembrance) may distinguish their descendants 
who never came to the birth, or were snatched away from their 
cradle." 

At the same time, although a soul enters the " vehicular 
state" a mere tabula rasa, and although "the spirits of an 
angel, a politician, a shoe-cleaner, an idiot, a man, or a child, 
are intrinsically the same," yet every man goes out of this 
world with a differently modelled " vehicle," not only accord- 
ing as he has been a soldier or a scholar, a merchant or a 
mechanic, a gentleman or a labourer, but also according to 
the joys and afflictions, the successes and disappointments, 
the thoughts and the habits, which have been his throughout 
this mortal life. The inhabitants of the "vehicular state" 
form a regular community, and, in addition to their own 

222 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

present and proper interests, have an interest in all that 
happens among us in so far as that tends to form characters 
and abilities which may be wanted for future service among 
themselves. But their condition is not eternal. The " vehi- 
cular " life has stages corresponding to our youth, maturity, 
and age; and in process of time the spirit, distending and 
separating the fibres of the " vehicle" by its inevitable expan- 
sion, flies off naked and alone. What happens to it then is 
the subject of the second hypothesis. 

Tucker was fond of taking up an old classical notion and 
remodelling it according to his own fancy. How he dealt 
with Plato's mythical charioteer has already been seen. He 
now proceeds to deal in somewhat similar fashion with the 
old notion of a soul of the world. As expounded in the 
" Timseus," the idea of a soul of the world was inextricably 
mixed up with certain Pythagorean abstractions concerning 
number. But, to put it briefly, the world was conceived to 
be a living animal, with a soul diffused throughout from 
centre to circumference. Because this animal was to contain 
all others, he was made in the form of a sphere. He had 
neither eyes, nor ears, nor hands, because there was nothing 
outside of himself to see, hear, or feel ; and because, as Plato 
assures us, that is the most intellectual of motions, he moved 
in a circle turning within himself, and consequently had no 
need of legs and feet. At first sight this idea does not seem 
a very promising one for the modern philosopher, but Tucker 
adapts it to his purpose with great ingenuity. He asks us to 
imagine " all space not occupied by matter " to be filled with 
individual spirits, lying contiguous together, so that " a 
perception raised in any one of them by some particle of 
matter would run instantly through them all quicker than 
fire does among the grains of gunpowder." This constitutes 
the mundane soul, which, we are told, " is one, no other- 
wise than as the sea is one, by a similitude and contiguity of 
parts, being composed of an innumerable host of distinct 
spirits, as that of aqueous particles." From this sea of spirit 

223 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

are drawn all the souls needful for the bodies that are born 
into this world, and the vacant spaces are filled up by the 
passage into it of fully developed spirits from the "vehicular 
state." " The parts of the universal soul will serve for organs 
to each other, conveying perceptions instantaneously from 
the most distant regions of nature, distributing to every one 
whatever information it may concern him to receive, for we 
know of nothing so quick as thought, nor that it takes up 
any time in its progress." As their knowledge is derived from 
one common fund, they will all have the same sentiments 
and rules of conduct. And seeing that our spirits may very 
well be capable of receiving impressions from twenty senses, 
though now we are provided with only five and have no 
more conception of any others than a blind man has of light, 
the extent of the mundane understanding must not be limited 
by the narrowness of our own, though there is no reason for 
us to suppose it infinite. But this god, or animal, or glorified 
man, which is the world, " will have a full discernment of 
all his parts, with their combinations, proportions, situations, 
and uses." The minutest thing will not escape his notice; 
he will be all intelligence, perfect reason, and unerring 
judgment ; and his activity will be co-extensive with his 
intelligence. Tucker, in fact, makes the mundane soul a 
sort of deputy or vice-regent of God, and: credits him with 
the generation and sustentation of the world. The strength 
of each of these spirits singly, he says, might be very trifling, 
perhaps scarce able to lift a mote in the sunbeams, yet by 
their united action they would be able to perform far more 
stupendous wonders than Milton's archangels. On the dis- 
ruption of a " vehicle " its inhabitant becomes instantly 
incorporated into the mundane soul ; and in this state there 
is no infancy, or growth of faculties, or advancement in 
learning, as there was in the former, but a new-comer at 
once becomes possessed of all the knowledge and designs 
of its neighbours, and immediately takes its share in their 
operations, according to the station wherein it happens to 

224 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

fall. It is impossible, declares Tucker, to imagine a more 
intimate " communion of saints " than such a host of happy 
spirits, acting in concert, carrying on one plan of operations, 
the act of all seeming the act of every one, and each having 
a kind of consciousness of what is performed by the whole 
company. But he feels that his notion may still seem strange 
and rather hard of realisation by that eighteenth century 
man in the street whom he had always in his mind's eye ; 
so he proceeds to develop the idea further in the guise of a 
vision. 

After falling asleep one night with his mind full of the 
foregoing speculations, he thought that something suddenly 
broke in his head, whereupon his soul separated from his 
body, and the latter, being whirled away by the motion of 
the earth at the rate of nine hundred miles a minute, left 
the former stranded as a helpless infant in another world. 
For a time he remained totally insensible ; then he was 
roused by a sensation of something brushing against him, 
and although he seemed to have no limbs, or muscles, or 
other organs, he determined that he would try to catch hold 
of whatever it was that continued to pass so nimbly by. 
Immediately this resolve was formed he seemed to be 
stretching out a hundred hands in every direction ; but, as 
these were instantly bombarded by what felt like a shower 
of hard balls, he incontinently drew the hands in again. He 
discovered afterwards that these bombarding balls were 
passing rays of light, but at the moment he knew not what 
to make of it. However, a little further cogitation suggested 
that, as he had so readily managed to furnish himself with 
hands, he might also in similar fashion provide himself with 
eyes ; and, sure enough, after a trial or two, he found himself 
able to thrust out a pair of optics with which to reconnoitre 
his surroundings. He then beheld a kind of sack or bag 
filled out like a bladder with air, uniform everywhere except 
that from one place there came out a hand and arm, which 
were holding him (or rather the similar bag in which he now 

N.D. 225 Q 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

perceived himself to be enclosed), and that from another 
place protruded a longish neck, with a head on it, having a 
meagre, lank-jawed face, very like the prints he had seen of 
John Locke. 

" It looked upon me steadfastly, with a mild and benign aspect, and 
the lips moved as in speaking. This made me quite impatient to hear 
what was said, but I was as deaf as a post : however, having already 
found myself provided with hands enow, I did not despair of finding 
plenty of ears too, if I could but tell how to open them. My whole 
attention and desire being now bent upon hearing, my eyes sunk in 
directly and left me in the dark, but I heard a confused jumble of 
whispers, short, broken, and inarticulate at first ; yet that did not 
discourage me, believing I should manage better by degrees, as I 
had done in the use of my sight. Accordingly, I could soon distinguish 
my own name repeated, which surprised me agreeably to find I was 
among friends. ' How's this ? ' thinks I to myself, ' that the retired Ned 
Search, scarce known to twenty people in the other world, should be 
so well known here that the first person he meets accosts him by name 1 
It must certainly be some old acquaintance whose face I have forgotten, 
departed hither before me. Sure it can never be really John Locke 
himself, sewn up here in a bag for his sins, for he died before I was 
born ? ' After this soliloquy, reflecting that the more haste the less 
speed, I moderated my impatience, and observing my motions care- 
fully and minutely, it was not long before I formed a complete ear, 
with drum and everything requisite for the auditory function." 

He then learns that his new acquaintance is indeed John 
Locke, who, having heard that Ned Search, for whom he had 
a spiritual affinity, was come on a short visit to the " vehicular " 
world, made it his business to meet him in order to do the 
honours of the place. The first necessity, of course, is to 
instruct Search in the use of his faculties. Most of the 
inhabitants use a " sentient " language, which is carried on 
by applying their " vehicles " close to one another and 
raising certain figures and motions on their outsides, which 
communicate the like to their neighbour, making the one, as 
it were, feel the other's thoughts ; but for the short period of 
his stay Search is advised to be content with the old vocal 
language. He fancies that his " bag " must be " big enough 
to hold two good Winchester bushels of corn without 

226 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

bursting," but Locke assures him it is so small that 
thousands like him might creep into a single grain. The 
little bag, however, has infinite capacities ; and, to show him 
what can be done with it, Locke throws himself into a 
variety of shapes — becoming first a man, then a horse, an 
eagle, a dolphin, a serpent, a stream of water, a flame of fire, 
a Briareus, an Argus — until Search exclaims that the 
" vehicular state " can never be in want of divertissement if 
all its inhabitants are such harlequins as that. Locke then 
explains that they have their imaginations as much under 
command as their limbs, being able to raise passions and 
desires of any sort they may find expedient, and to lay these 
down again at any moment when they are no longer required. 
On entering the " vehicular state " the soul leaves all its 
old acquisitions behind, but brings with it a peculiar aptness 
to make new ones similar to those it possessed before. 
Their condition is " longevous," but not eternal, for they 
are " advanced," as they term it, when they have completely 
purged themselves from every trace of " terrene concretion." 
Their mode of travelling is rather curious, for Search finds 
that they put out a couple of legs and get their momentum 
from the rays of light by a motion very much like that of a 
Dutchman skating upon ice. They dodge between the rays 
of light in a serpentine manner, and it is enough to take 
away the breath even of a modern motorist to hear that in 
this fashion Search was carried along by Locke "at the rate 
of forty thousand miles in a minute of Paul's clock." The 
new-comer inquires after his wife, who has been in that 
world for seven years, and is informed that he may pay her 
a visit, though Locke drily remarks that " we seldom meet 
with husbands so anxious about their wives." She addresses 
him as " Orphy," and he her as " Riddy," which we presume 
to be the "vehicular" parlance for Orpheus and Euridice ; 
and they converse about their two daughters, familiarly 
referred to as "Serena" and " Sparkle," until " Orphy's " 
feelings overcome him, and he attempts to take " Riddy " 

227 Q 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

affectionately by the hand, whereupon " that severe, relent- 
less pedagogue, that hard-hearted old batchelor, Locke . . . 
darted out a brawny arm and mutton fist, with which he 
catched up the skin of my vehicle, as one catches up a dog 
by the nape of his neck, and away we flew with incredible 
swiftness." Immediately after this Locke has occasion to 
leave him alone for a moment, when he undergoes a very 
unpleasant experience. 

" I felt myself on a sudden seized all over by something hard, rough, 
and searching, a hundred cords seemed to ring me round, a thousand 
points stuck into my flesh, and I felt rough teeth grinding upon my 
skin. Ideas of resentment, cruelty, avarice, injustice, lewdness, 
debauchery, blasphemy, terror, shame, regret, and despair, poured 
upon my imagination, and pierced me to the very soul. I found 
myself tempted to all kinds of wickedness, to snatch the bread from 
the hungry, tear out the bowels of children, pluck out the eyes of my 
dearest friends, dash out my own brains against a stone, wallow in 
all the impurities of a brothel, rebel against the throne of Heaven, and 
worship the Devil." 

He struggled with all his might against these distressing 
thoughts, and endeavoured to call up every opposite idea, 
an effort which had some effect ; but when Locke returned he 
was still in a state of great uneasiness and dismay, which 
was not much alleviated when his mentor pointed out to 
him the cause of the mischief. 

" I looked the way he pointed, and saw a black bottled spider, as big 
as myself, sprawling and cuffing with his nasty claws against three or 
four vehicles, who thrust out arms as long again as usual to push him 
away : however, they managed him pretty easily, and drove him before 
them to some stellar rays that pointed directly down to earth. ' Pray,' 
says I, ' what hideous monster is that ? The very sight of him, though 
so far off, makes me shudder, and almost renews the pains I suffered 
from him.' " 

Locke explains that this is one of a set of wretched 
" vehicles," so encrusted with terrene concretions as to be 
abandoned to misery and despair, and that his name when 
on earth was Caesar Borgia. He appears to have come up 
on an unwonted visit from the regions of darkness, and 

228 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

would never have dared to touch Search had he not perceived 
him to be labouring under some temporary disturbance of 
mind. This was Search's first experience of the vehicular 
" sentient " language, for it appears that by applying himself 
closely on all sides to the other Borgia had been able to 
inject into him all his own evil sentiments. Locke cures 
him in a similar manner. 

" • Come ! flatten your side a little, that we may have as large a 
contact as possible.' He then applied himself close to my side, and 
though I could discern nothing distinctly, for want of skill in the 
language, I felt such a general gleam of piety, sound reason, benevo- 
lence, courage, temperance, cheerfulness, quiet and satisfaction, spread 
over my imagination, as dissipated all my troubles, and restored me 
perfectly to myself again. ' Thank ye,' says I, ' incomparable master ; 
I find you can assist, instruct, reprove, soothe, and everything, just as 
is proper. This is an excellent language when spoken by a good 
orator.' " 

Locke next takes his pupil on a visit to Plato, who on 
learning that his visitor is what Locke describes as "a 
disconsolate turtle who has lost his mate " gives him a charac- 
teristic discourse on the subject of love; and when Plato has 
finished, the same subject is taken up by Socrates, who cross- 
examines Search much as he used to do the sophists of 
ancient Athens. Plato and Locke together then conduct 
him to Pythagoras, who discourses to him about the sacred 
Quaternion and the holy Tetragrammaton and other 
mysteries of the One and of number. After this Search 
expresses his anxiety to be introduced to some of the 
Apostles ; but learning that they have all been " advanced," 
he desires to have speech with some of the famous moderns 
instead. Being new-comers, however, most of these were 
travelling about, after the fashion of young gentlemen on the 
earth below, to finish their education. 

" Newton is run after the great comet that appeared in 1685, to 
try the justice of his calculations upon its trajectory. Huygens has 
undertaken a longer journey, to measure the distance, magnitude, and 
brightness of the Dog-star. Theory Burnet set out upon a visit to 

22g 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

Jupiter, as being an earth in its antediluvian state. He wants to peep 
into the great hole astronomers observe there, in hopes of seeing the 
great abyss beneath, and remarking how the earth stands in the water 
and out of the water. He then goes to Saturn, to examine whether the 
ring be not a part of the paradisiacal crust not yet broken in. Whiston 
is engaged in a wild-goose chase among all the Comets, to find which of 
them will bring on the conflagration, that he may calculate precisely in 
what year the Millennium begins, wherein he is to be chief Messenger, 
Archbishop Metropolitan, and Primate of all the new earth." 

Search has, therefore, to be satisfied with visiting some 
of the small fry, including the famous German professor 
Stahl, who, being of a heavy and phlegmatic temperament, 
has not yet learned the use of his vehicular legs, and who 
treats us to a long discussion of a particularly uninteresting 
character. 

After having thus acquired a general knowledge of the 
" vehicular state," Search learns that he is to be " advanced " ; 
and, amidst the congratulations of all around him, his 
" vehicle " bursts, and he is absorbed into the mundane 
soul. 

" As upon a man awaking in the morning out of sleep, the dreams 
and visions of the night vanish away, his senses, which had been kept 
stupefied, throw open their windows, his activity, that had lain sus- 
pended, returns, he resumes the command of his limbs, recovers his 
ideas and understanding, and goes on with the schemes and occupations 
he had begun the day before : so, upon my absorption, I found myself, 
not translated into another species of creature, but restored to myself 
again. I had the perfect command of my limbs, and their motions 
were familiar to me, I had that knowledge and judgment which is the 
result of experience. My body was immense, yet I could manage it 
without trouble, my understanding extensive, yet without confusion or 
perplexity : for the material universe was my body, the several systems 
my limbs, the subtle fluids my circulating juices, and the face of nature 
my sensory. In that sensory I discerned all science and wisdom to 
direct me in the application of my powers, which were vigorous and 
mighty, extending to every member and fibre of my vast composition. 
I had no external object to look upon, nor external subject to act upon ; 
yet found an inexhaustible variety to employ my large thoughts, and 
unwearied activity within myself. I rolled the bulky planets in their 
courses, and held them down to their orbits by my strong attraction. 

23O 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

I pressed heavy bodies to the earth, squeezed together the particles of 
metals in firm cohesion, and darted beams of light through the expanse 
of innumerable heavens. I beheld the affairs of men, discovered all 
their springs of action, and knew how to set both them and the 
courses of events so as to guide the wheels of fortune with unerring 
certainty." 

We must not follow Search in his further experiences as a 
part of the mundane soul, for they occupy twenty pages or 
more, all recited in a strain of serious and sustained eloquence 
and incapable of abstract or abridgment. In the end an 
angel carries him back and replaces him in his " vehicle," 
whereupon he is promptly informed that day has broken on 
the earth, and that if he does not speedily return to his body, 
his family, finding no sensation in it, will probably send for 
the doctors and surgeons to blister and scarify him all over. 
Guided by the friendly Locke, therefore, he descends to 
earth, and passes into his own house through the pores of the 
tiles and timbers. 

" We clomb a high pinnacle that appeared like the Peak of Teneriffe, 
tapering up to the top, where was a spacious flat big enough for five 
hundred of us to have danced a Lancashire hornpipe. ' What are we 
got upon now ? ' says I. — 'The point of a pin,' says he, ' sticking out of 
your pillow. But look up over your head and all about ye.' — ' I used 
to think,' quoth I, ' the world was round ; but this is a square world.' — 
1 It is your bed,' says he, 'the curtains drawn round except one place 
at the feet.' — ' Good lack ! ' says I, ' what fools mankind are to terrify 
themselves with notions of ghosts throwing open their curtains and 
staring at them with saucer eyes ! A million of us could not stir those 
heavy textures, nor reflect corpuscles of light enow to make the appari- 
tion of a flea. But what is that huge mountain over against us, with 
a monstrous gaping chasm on one side, and a great ridge turned this 
way, from whence issue black streams of fuliginous vapour ? ' — ' That,' 
says he, 'is your head, mouth, and nose.' — ' Surprising,' says I, ' I have 
lain so many years, like another Enceladus, under that smoking Etna. 
How could I help being suffocated with that load of filth upon my 
lungs? ' " 

He is reluctant to return to so disgusting a habitation, but 
Locke persuades him ; he casts himself into the shape of one of 
" Lewenhoek's " animalcules, passes through one of the pores 

231 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

of the head, the vision ends, and anon he awakes in the 
commonplace workaday world. 

The foregoing is a brief and necessarily inadequate sum- 
mary of Tucker's hypothetical representation of a future life, 
which is worked out in elaborate detail in something over 
three hundred pages of his third volume. It is not to be taken 
as a mere play of humorous fancy. Tucker was a serious 
and devout thinker, and the intellectual system of the universe 
which he had worked out for himself in his solitary cogita- 
tions was intended to satisfy the moral and religious instincts 
of a candid and inquiring mind. His method of presentment 
he expressly states to have been deliberately adopted out of 
consideration for an infirmity of his compatriots, who are 
" too squeamish in their taste and fonder of the toothsome 
than the wholesome." It is on this account, he says, that he 
has likened the human machine sometimes to a mill, some- 
times to a study hung round with bells, sometimes to a 
chamber organ ; that he has produced a chess-board to prove 
that the sphere of a spirit's presence is wide enough to con- 
tain sixty-four particles of matter, computed the corpuscles 
of light in a grain of wax, introduced Hatchet the carpenter 
or Mrs. Cook and her plum-pudding into the most meta- 
physical of his discourses, and brought in a cat to assist in 
an optical experiment. He has observed that books are 
usually recommended, not because they are instructive, but 
because they are entertaining ; and he only hopes his readers 
will not frustrate his good intentions by doing like the 
children when one sweetens a pill for them, who suck off the 
sugar and spit out the medicine. Many of his comparisons 
and illustrations are far from what the reader would 
expect in a grave metaphysico-theological treatise, and 
are perhaps all the more effective on account of their 
unexpectedness. For instance, in his chapter on the Divine 
Purity he effectually disposes of the extravagance of certain 
enthusiasts who exhort us literally to have God always in 
our thoughts, and to do every action of our lives with 

232 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

conscious intention to please Him, with the following quaint 
observation : — 

" If every time we shifted, or washed our hands, or cut our corns, or 
did other things I do not care to name, we were to do them with direct 
attention to please him, it would be more likely to debase and con- 
taminate than ennoble and sanctify our minds ; to degrade him below 
ourselves, than raise us to a nearer resemblance with him." 

And similarly, in his chapter on the Divine Majesty, he thus 
comments on an objectionable habit some people have of 
attributing many of the little trivial and insignificant 
accidents of their lives to the direct interposition of Provi- 
dence : — 

" A grain of dust falling in a man's eye while fighting, may prove his 
destruction : a few particles of rust upon a firelock, or of damp in the 
pan, may save a life ; a wasp missing his hold in crawling up the sides 
of a pot, may fall in, to be drank by one whom he shall sting to death ; 
a young lady by a lucky assortment of her ribands, may procure entrance 
into a family where she shall become the mother of heroes ; yet we 
cannot without impiety imagine God following the single atoms of 
terrene or aqueous matter as they float about in the air, watching his 
opportunity to trip up the feet of a crawling insect, or attending a giddy 
girl when she adjusts her dress at the toilet. We know, both from 
reason and authority that of two sparrows that are sold for a farthing, 
not one falleth to the ground without our heavenly Father, and the 
hairs of our head are all numbered : yet what pious man, if upon 
combing his head he meets with a tangle that tears off two or three 
hairs, or if a cat should happen to catch his favourite sparrow, would 
ascribe these catastrophes to the hand of Providence ? Who would 
not be shocked at the profaneness of one who, upon finding only the 
tail of a mouse in his trap, or upon losing a flea that he had hunted 
after, should say it was the Will of God they should escape ? " 

Sometimes, however, his peculiar humour prompts him to 
the use of highly eccentric comparisons and illustrations, for 
which the sugar-coating of a pill is by no means an appro- 
priate simile. In his chapter on Divine Services, for 
example, he gives a striking example of the fact that, as he 
himself confesses, many ideas had come by familiarity to 
lie easy and inoffensive in his mind which had before appeared 
uncouth and disturbing, and which might still appear so to 

233 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

other people for in the course of an argument in favour 
of the appointment of particular times and the appropriation 
of special places for divine worship, because this cannot as 
a rule be done with proper piety in all places indiscriminately, 
he admits that there may be exceptions to the rule, and 
rather startles the reader by supplying the following 
extremely unconventional instance : — 

" Suppose a man seized with a distemper that will allow nothing to 
pass through him ; he has tried several remedies in vain, and given 
himself over : if at last he finds them begin to take effect, I conceive he 
may offer as pure and acceptable a thanksgiving from his close-stool, as 
he ever did from a hassock in his pew." 

After Tucker had gone as far as the unaided light of 
nature would carry him, his next proceeding was to compare 
the discoveries so made with the doctrines of revealed 
religion. But as he succeeds in making the dogmas of the 
Church of England harmonise with his own system of ethics 
and natural religion only by a personal and peculiar inter- 
pretation, which often comes perilously near to explaining 
them away, we need not follow him throughout this operation. 
As might quite naturally be expected from a thinker of his 
temperament, he calmly propounds not a few heresies of his 
own. In his chapter on Redemption, after pointing out 
how many children there are in the midst of Christendom 
who never arrive at an age to understand the religion of 
their country, how many grown persons there are bred up 
in such ignorance that they can never attain to a just notion 
of it, how many there are who have rejected it — and small 
blame to them — because of its having been presented to 
them by ignorant fanatics in a corrupt and unacceptable 
form, he goes on to assert with quiet dogmatism that, if 
Christ died for all men, all these, having had no real 
opportunity of embracing the gracious offer, " must " be 
afforded it "elsewhere." He could not bring himself 
to believe in the eternity of future punishment, and held 
that doctrine not only to have no foundation in human 

234 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

reason, but to be unwarranted by Scripture ; and he was 
much more favourably disposed towards the Roman Catholic 
idea of purgatory. He could see "no difference between a 
true member of Christ and a good citizen of the world 
other than their method of attaining those characters " ; and 
he held that if we could not make a man a good Christian 
we should try to make him a good Heathen, or a good Jew, 
or a good Freethinker. All which undoubtedly shows 
sound common-sense and abundant charity, but is several 
removes from the strict orthodoxy either of his eighteenth or 
of our twentieth century. Tucker punctiliously attended 
the services of the Church both in London and in his 
country village, but one suspects he would often have liked 
the parson to come down from the pulpit and let him preach 
the sermon. This being out of the question, however, he 
would go home and write a counterblast to what he had 
heard, in the following fashion : — 

" Neither can anybody tell precisely of what kind the enjoyments of 
another life shall consist. But those who go about to paint them by 
figurative representations seem not always to have chosen such as are 
proper to strike upon the imagination. They tell us the righteous shall 
live exempt from all pain, labour, hardship, oppression, infirmity, or dis- 
appointment, and all tears shall be wiped from their eyes. So far it 
is well : but this is only a negative happiness, such as may be found in 
annihilation : but what actual enjoyment are they to have ? Why, they 
shall sing psalms all day long and every day. This may be vast pleasure, 
for aught I know, to a mind rightly tuned, but as our minds are strung 
at present, I believe there is scarce anybody who would not be tired of 
singing psalms before half the day was out, or after having sung out the 
whole week, would have much stomach to sing again on Sunday. 

" But then they shall sit in white robes, with crowns on their heads, 
and all be kings. This may weigh much with such as are fond of fine 
clothes, and would be prodigiously delighted to hear themselves called 
' Your Majesty.' But if we are all to be kings, where are your subjects ? 
Oh ! the toils of government would be troublesome, but we shall be 
called to the bench to sit as assessors in judging the wicked, and triumph 
over all our enemies. This may have charms with the Methodists, and 
others of an ill-natured religion : but for my part, I should esteem the 
condemnation of malefactors a burden rather than an amusement : I 
never sign a mittimus to the house of correction, but had much rather 

235 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

it were done by somebody else ; and if I had any enemies, I think I should 
not wish to insult and triumph over them, or if I did take vengeance 
upon them, should do it as a matter of necessity, not of gratification. 
Besides, all this will furnish employment only for the day of judgment : 
when that day is ended, there will be nothing further to do. 

" Well, but their enjoyment of the beatific vision will not cease. I 
can imagine there may be an extreme delight in the full and clear 
display of the Divine Attributes, particularly that of goodness: for I 
have experienced a proportionate degree of satisfaction in the contem- 
plation, so far as I have been able to comprehend them. But this is 
only in my retirements, when I can bring my thoughts to a proper pitch 
by long and careful meditation : when I go abroad into the world upon 
my common transactions, I do not find this idea attend me in full 
vigour and complexion ; and believe those who want incitements most 
will be scarce feebly touched with the hope of seeing God as he is. 
Besides, as I have powers of action as well as of reflection, I cannot 
readily conceive that in a state of bliss one of them should remain 
useless, nor how enjoyment can be complete which rests in speculation 
alone. In short, all propounded to us in the common harangues on 
this subject seems to be no more than an Epicurean heaven, a monastic 
happiness, an undisturbed pious idleness. 

" But give me for my incitements, a life of activity and business ; a 
constant succession of purposes worthy a reasonable creature's pursuit ; 
unwearied vigour of mind ; instruments obedient to command ; exemp- 
tion from passion, which might lead me astray ; unsatiating desires of 
the noble and generous kind ; clearness of judgment to secure me 
against mistake or disappointment ; company of persons ready to assist 
me with their lights and their helping hand, so that we may join together 
with perfect harmony in that best of services, the exercise of universal 
charity, in administering the laws of God and executing his commands. 
And if I have therewith a largeness of understanding, these occupations 
need not hinder but that, while busied in them, I may feast upon the 
contemplation of whatever glorious objects shall be afforded me, either 
in the works of nature or the Author and Contriver of them. 

" Some Religions propound rewards alluring enough to human sense. 
A Mahometan paradise may suit very well with Asiatic luxury : but then 
such incitements are worse than none, as being mischievous to practice. 
For as one is naturally inclined to inure oneself to the way of living 
one expects to follow, they are better calculated to lead into the road 
of destruction than of happiness. Nor are our modern enthusiasts less 
blameable in flattering their mob with the privilege of insulting and 
ill-using their betters : for of the two, a man is not drawn so far aside 
from the spirit of piety by the thought of possessing a seraglio of 
beautiful wenches, as of having a Lord or a Bishop bound hand and 
foot for him to kick and cuff about as he pleases." 

236 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

Tucker saw clearly enough a century and a half ago what 
is now only slowly percolating from anthropology into 
theology, viz., that we are all idolaters, and that man makes 
God in his own image. He saw, too, not only that the 
process is inevitable, but that it may be beneficial instead of 
harmful, provided that we keep our eidolon clear of all 
avoidable grossness and impurity. After his manner, he 
illustrates from his own personal experience : — 

" I can just remember when the women first taught me to say my 
prayers. I used to have the idea of a venerable old man, of a composed, 
benign countenance, with his own hair " [gentlemen in those days wore 
wigs], " clad in a morning gown of a grave-coloured flowered damask, 
sitting in an elbow chair. I am not disturbed at the grossness of my 
infant theology, it being the best I could then entertain : for I was then 
much about as wise as Epicurus, having no conception of sense or 
authority possible out of a human form. And perhaps the time will 
come when, if I can look back upon my present thoughts, I may find 
the most elevated of them as unworthy of their object as I now think 
the old man in the elbow chair." 

Even in our day we sometimes hear people talk as though 
they imagined not only the whole round world and all that 
therein is, but even the whole universe, to have been made 
for man. Tucker points out the enormous wastefulness and 
extravagance implied in any such supposition, and argues 
that Providence has evidently much else to take care of in 
addition to ourselves. 

" Man has no further concern with this earth than a few fathom 
under his feet : was then the whole solid globe beneath made only for 
a foundation to support the slender shell he treads upon ? Do the 
magnetic effluvia course incessantly over land and sea, only to turn 
here and there a mariner's compass ? Are those immense bodies the 
fixed stars hung up for nothing but to twinkle in our eyes by night, or 
find employment for a few astronomers ? Is that prodigious effusion 
of light darted every way throughout the expanse of heaven for no 
other purpose than to enlighten and cherish two or three little planets ? 
Does the vast profundity of space contain no more inhabitants than we see 
crawling about us, or may conjecture abiding on other earths like ours ? 
Surely he must have an overweening conceit of man's importance, who 
can imagine this stupendous frame of the Universe fabricated for him 
alone : and he must be too partial an admirer of visible nature, or 

237 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

entertain too mean an opinion of infinite wisdom, that can persuade 
himself things could not have been contrived better for the accommo- 
dation and happiness of man, had that been the sole object of Divine 
attention." 

Man is in the habit of thinking that, at any rate, all the 
living creatures he sees around him were made for his special 
use and benefit ; but, says our humorous philosopher, it 
might as well be said that he was made for the special use 
and benefit of other creatures. Not only does he employ 
his reason and his care to provide for such animals as are 
obviously subservient to his uses — the sheep and oxen for 
which he finds pasture, the horse which receives provender 
and tendance at his hands, the mastiff and the spaniel which 
earn their wages in his service — but predatory birds eat the 
grain he sows, predatory mice share in the provisions for his 
table, the parasitic flea and gnat regale on his blood, the 
harvest-bug burrows in his flesh, and his carcase breeds and 
nourishes the worm and the maggot. He is also in the 
habit of thinking that his " Godlike " intellect is capable of 
solving the riddle of the universe, yet his conception of it 
may be as imperfect as is entertained by the meanest of 
these. Tucker occasionally amused himself in a vacant 
hour, he tells us, with imagining what ideas the brute 
creation would entertain of our transactions_supposing them 
to be endowed with understanding and reflection similar 
to ours. As they have little intercourse with us and no 
means of acquiring information from our speech or writings, 
it appears that they could have no conception of our politics, 
commerce, mechanics, mathematics, rhetoric, fashion, and 
other methods of employing our time, and would consequently 
find our proceedings for the most part quite unaccountable. 
A lively story is then introduced to show by implication 
that a like incapacity hampers man in his cosmical 
speculations : — 

" I have heard a story of some very valuable jewel or piece of plate 
in a house having been lost in such a manner as to make it certain some 

238 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

of the family had taken it, but no suspicion could be fastened upon any 
particular person, for they all denied any knowledge of the matter. The 
vicar was called in to examine them, but being able to get nothing out 
by his interrogatories, he engaged to discover the thief by art magic : 
for he had a cock among his poultry of wonderful sagacity, that being 
rightly prepared and situated, would know the touch of a light-fingered 
person in the dark ; so he fetched the cock, tied down upon a nest of 
hay in a basket, which was placed at the further end of a darkened 
room ; the servants were ordered to go in one by one and stroke the 
back of the cock, who upon feeling the delinquent would instantly crow. 
They went in each of them alone and returned, but still the cock did 
not crow. Our conjuror seemed surprised, for he said he never knew 
the cock fail before, and surely they had not all touched him. Yes, 
indeed, and indeed, they had. ' Pray,' says he, 'let's see your hands.' 
Upon turning them up, the palms of all except one were found as black 
as the chimney-stock, for he had besmeared the cock's back with grease 
and lampblack, of which those who were conscious of their innocence 
had taken a strong impression by giving a hearty rub, but the guilty 
person, though having no great faith in the cock's virtue, yet not 
knowing what tricks your learned man may play, thought it safest not 
to venture, especially as his word must be taken, there being no witness 
in the room with him to see how he behaved. 

" Now imagine the parson's poultry possessing as large a share of 
the rational faculty as you please, they will never be able to account 
for these ceremonies undergone by the cock : but when he got home 
to relate his adventures, if there were any free-thinking cockerills in 
the henroost, they would treat it as an idle, incredible tale ; for there 
would be no use nor purpose in daubing his back, tying him in a 
basket, shutting him up in a dark room, and sending so many different 
people to rub him over. 'Certainly,' they say, 'our daddy begins to 
doat, and vents his dreams for real facts ; or else has been perching 
carelessly upon the edge of a tub until he fell backwards into some 
filthy stuff within it, and now would impose this invention upon the 
credulous vulgar among the chicken kind, to set us a pecking away the 
grease from his feathers, in hopes we shall foul our bills or spoil our 
stomachs so that we cannot eat, and then he will have all our barley 
to himself.' " 

Tucker's benevolent disposition showed itself strongly in 
his love of animals, whom he called " our younger brethren 
of the brutal species." Those who had no feelings of 
tenderness and humanity for animals, he held, must neces- 
sarily be of a hard and callous nature, inhuman and 
indifferent to the distresses of their own species. He objected 

239 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

to men calling themselves the lords of creation, at any rate 
whenever the phrase seemed to imply that the lords looked 
down with contempt upon all inferior animals and would 
think it a disparagement of their own dignity to suppose 
that the others might ever be raised to their level. It was 
both orthodox and fashionable, he admitted (and it is so 
still), to believe that death means annihilation to the brutes, 
and that they were created solely for man's uses, or misuses, 
without the least regard to any benefit or pleasure their 
existence might produce to themselves. But when anybody 
told him it was ridiculous and inconceivable that such an 
abject condition could be the prelude to a more exalted 
state, he would ask whether the condition of some of us, 
who so confidently expect to become angels, is not almost 
as abject, whether a human infant when it lies sleeping, 
squalling, or spewing in its cradle has much more sense and 
intelligence than a puppy, and whether many thousands 
of our species do not pass out of this world without ever 
attaining a much greater degree of intellectual or spiritual 
dignity. In the chapter headed " Divine Economy," in the 
sixth volume of his treatise, there is a passage on this 
subject, which is so interesting in itself and so characteristic 
of the writer that, notwithstanding its length, it must be 
transcribed verbatim : — 

" Upon occasion of the divine care extending to the smallest things, 
I shall venture to put in a word on behalf of our younger brethren of the 
brute species : yet it is with fear and trepidation, lest I should offend 
the delicacy of our imperial race, who may think it treason against their 
high pre-eminence and dignity to raise a doubt of their engrossing the 
sole care of Heaven. I shall not allege that Nature has provided the 
animals with accommodations for breeding, for harbouring, for feeding ; 
because it will be said these were given for our sakes, to fit them for 
our services. But let it be considered that by these very services they 
become remotely instrumental to our salvation : for how could the 
Divine or the Philosopher perform the part allotted him in carrying on 
that great work, without the sustenance, the clothing, the other con- 
veniences, he draws from the irrational tribes ? or at least if he could, 
it is a fact that he does not, and therefore something is owing to them 

240 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

for the help they give him in his principal concern. Besides, it has 
been shown in the foregoing pages that the plan of Providence for per- 
fecting human nature does not stand confined to the operations of 
Religion and Philosophy, for the polity of nations, the characters and 
transactions of the people, have their share in the work : and the com- 
merce, manufactures, and employments influencing these things, derive 
many of their materials and receive much of their assistance from the 
inferior creatures. 

" Then for the orthodox, with whom I am likely to have somewhat 
more difficulty upon this subject than with the reasoner, I beg them to 
consider that many lambs, goats, and doves, have by express command 
of God been slaughtered for atonements and sacrifices, and made sub- 
servient to the uses of Religion. Since then, as well by his special 
injunction as by his ordinary providence, he calls upon the creatures 
for their labours, their sufferings, and their lives, in the progress of his 
great work of the Redemption, why should we think it an impeachment 
of his Equity if he assigns them wages for all they undergo in this 
important service ? or an impeachment of his Power and of his Wisdom 
if such wages accrue to them by certain stated laws of universal Nature 
running through both Worlds ? 

" In what manner the compensation is operated would be needless 
and impossible to ascertain : perhaps they stand only one stage below 
us in the journey through matter, and as we hope to rise from sensitivo- 
rational creatures to purely rational, so they may be advanced to 
sensitivo-rational. And when our nature is perfected, we may be 
employed to act as guardian angels for assisting them in the improve- 
ment of their new faculties, becoming lords and not tyrants of our new 
world, and exercising government by employing our superior skill and 
power for the benefit of the governed : by which way may be compre- 
hended how they may have an interest of their own in everything 
relative to the forwarding our Redemption. Yet it is not necessary 
they must have bodies shaped, limbed, and sized, exactly like ours ; for 
the treasures of wisdom are not so scanty as that we should pronounce 
with Epicurus, there can be no spice of reason or reflection except in 
a human figure, and upon the surface of an Earth circumstanced just 
like this we inhabit. 

" No doubt it will appear a wild and absurd imagination to fancy that 
a dog can ever be made to think and reason like a man, and so indeed 
it may be while you take your idea of the creature from his hairy hide, 
his long tail, his lolling tongue, and gross organs of sense ; but it is as 
absurd to suppose you can ever teach a sucking child the mathematics, 
yet the child may grow to be a man, and then become capable of the 
sciences. Nor is it easy to conceive how a man, while consisting of an 
unwieldy body, with a variety of discordant humours circulating therein, 
can become purely rational, perfectly happy, secure from all dangers, 
N.D. 241 R 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

proof against all temptations ; yet we hope that man shall one day rise 
to the condition of an Angel : then by Man must not be understood his 
whole composition, but some internal part, which when disjoined from 
the rest, will still continue to be him : and how know we what internal 
part may belong to other animals, capable of higher faculties than they 
now can exercise ? When the caterpillar changes into a butterfly, we 
easily apprehend it to be the same creature, with larger powers than it 
had before, and if we knew the worm had passed its time in uneasiness, 
but the fly in a greater degree of pleasure, we should acknowledge the 
enjoyments of the one a compensation for the troubles of the other, both 
being numerically the same. 

" But when the butterfly dies, we see no chrysalis left behind, yet we 
are not to think everything absolutely lost that is gone beyond the reach 
of our senses : there may still remain an imperceptible chrysalis, from 
whence will issue another fly with powers superior to the former ; and 
while the same perceptive individual passes through all these changes, 
it will continue the same creature, notwithstanding ever so many altera- 
tions in the external form and substance. If you grant but that a dog 
feels me when I pinch him by the tail, this is enough to prove that he 
has a personality, and that what feels the pinch is an individual ; for 
perceptivity cannot belong to a compound, any otherwise than as the 
other component parts may serve for channels of conveyance to some 
one which receives the conveyance entire ; and in whatever different 
compounds this individual resides, they are successively the same 
percipient. Nor is the case otherwise with ourselves : for, as has 
been already observed in the chapter on the Trinity, personality and 
identity belong properly to Spirit ; Matter has none of its own, but 
assumes a borrowed personality from the particular Spirit whereto it 
happens to stand united. 

" We all apprehend ourselves continuing the same persons from the 
cradle to the grave, notwithstanding that many believe all the corporeal 
particles belonging to us change every seven years ; because the same 
percipient abiding with us throughout makes every fresh set of them 
become a part of ourselves for the time, while adhering to us, and 
serving for our uses. And the personal identity currently believed to 
continue through life in the brutes, rests upon the same bottom with 
our own : every child who reads the fable of the Old Lion buffeted 
about by the beasts in revenge for the tyrannies he had exercised 
over them in his youth, acknowledges he deserved the punishment. 
But punishment is not ordinarily esteemed just unless inflicted upon 
the very party offending; therefore the whelp, the young, and the 
decrepit Lion is conceived all along the same identical creature : but 
this identity must depend upon the feeling part, for the corporeal 
composition may be supposed to fluctuate and change as ours does. 

" We have no knowledge of other percipients unless by means of 

242 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

their appearance and discernible actions, therefore cannot know what 
other powers they might not exert if they had other instruments to 
serve them : we are ready enough to think that if we had as good a 
nose as the hound, we could distinguish scents as well as he ; or if we 
had the wings and piercing optics of the vulture, we could soar aloft, 
and discern objects as far : what then should hinder but if those 
creatures had our nice texture of brain, they might make as good use 
of it as we do ? or what evidence is there in experience or reason to 
prove that every perceptive individual is not capable of receiving what- 
ever perceptions any organisation, vitally united thereto, is capable of 
conveying ? Our physiological science does not extend to the laws of 
Universal Nature governing the worlds unseen, we must take our con- 
ceptions of them from our ideas of the divine Attributes ; and the 
boundless Goodness of God is no slight evidence to persuade us that 
his Mercy spreads over all his perceptive creatures to whom he has 
given an individuality, rendering them imperishable, and that he has 
provided laws among his second causes which will raise them gradually 
from a more abject condition to higher faculties and higher degrees of 
enjoyment. From whence it seems probable there is a general interest 
of animals, comprehending that of all other species together with the 
human. 

" I shall not scruple to own that, however this point be deter- 
mined, it will make no difference in our treatment of the animals ; 
therefore the generality of mankind, to whom it can be of no benefit for 
their direction in the conduct of life, are welcome to reject it with 
ridicule and exclamation at the strangeness of the thought ; but for 
such as like to handle the Telescope, to attempt excursions into the 
boundless regions of Universal Nature, and can find a use in speculation 
for warming and enlarging their hearts, it may prove not unavailing. 
For my own part, 1 place my hopes, not so much in any supposed pre- 
eminence of my present nature, nor merits of my person, as in the 
riches of the divine Bounty : and the farther I can persuade myself 
that Bounty extends, the higher rise my hopes. My principal solicitude 
is for the fate of the human species, because being one of the number 
composing it ; but if that be secured, if God design me an elder brother's 
portion, I care not how many of our younger brethren be destined to 
receive the like : for I have so high an opinion of his inexhaustible 
treasures, as to lie under no apprehension lest he should be forced to 
abate from my share in order to make up for theirs. Besides that a 
good-natured man, who knows what slaughters and hard services the 
animals are put to for our necessary uses, in some whereof he is forced 
himself to give a reluctant hand, will feel a satisfaction in having room 
to imagine their interests so connected with ours, that whatever advances 
the one must advance the other, and all they do or suffer for our benefit 
will in the long run redound to their own." 

243 R 2 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

The attempt to give, within a small compass and by 
practicable quotation, any adequate idea of Tucker's method 
and style is scarcely more satisfactory than bringing a bucket 
of water to represent the ocean, or than producing a few 
sprigs of fern by way of enabling a Londoner to appreciate 
the scenery of the New Forest. In fact, Tucker's treatise 
might well be likened to an extensive metaphysical forest, 
traversed, indeed, by certain high-roads, along which the 
author knows his way well enough, but which he seldom 
keeps to for any length of time, having a strong propensity 
for conducting his reader into alluring by-paths on the one 
side or the other, and not infrequently bringing him round 
to see some favourite prospect again and again from a 
different point of view. At the same time, just as in a walk 
in the forest, it is these interesting, and sometimes only 
apparently irrelevant, digressions which are most instructive, 
while they undoubtedly constitute no inconsiderable part 
both of the forest's and of the author's charm. Although 
occasionally attracted by highly imaginative, and what to 
many may seem even extremely fantastical, speculations, he 
never loses his grip on the realities of life ; and notwithstand- 
ing our excursions into various hypothetical states of being, 
we are always brought back to this world, 

" Which is the world of all of us, and where 
We find our happiness, or not at all." 

He is essentially a moralist, and discourses eloquently in 
praise of honour, rectitude, prudence, fortitude, temperance, 
justice, and benevolence ; and yet, without subscribing 
altogether to Mandeville's doctrine that private vices are 
public benefits, he sees that, in such a world as the present, 
it is certainly sometimes highly convenient that many persons 
are possessed of qualities the reverse of virtuous. It is 
undeniable, he says, that much good springs from evil, and 
that " vices serve like rotten dung to force up those exotic 
plants the virtues in us." 

244 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

"How should we man our fleets or recruit our armies, if there were 
no such thing as idleness, extravagance, and debauchery in the kingdom ? 
I believe few, even among the poorest, ever breed up their children to 
those services, so that if none were to be taken into them who did not 
enter out of prudence or deliberate choice, I fear the little state of 
Genoa might be able to overrun us. The parents wish their lads to 
get a safe and honest livelihood upon the land by their labour, or to 
learn some manual trade for a subsistence : but when a young fellow is 
good for nothing else, or becomes involved in debt, or hampered in 
some dangerous amour, then away he goes to make food for powder, 
or a sop in the briny broth of Ocean. And when commenced warrior, 
he becomes serviceable more by his imperfections than by his good 
qualities : the watchings and fastings, the wants, distresses, bangs and 
bruises he has brought upon himself by his irregularities, inure him to 
a hardiness that nothing can hurt ; his averseness to forethought, and 
the habit of singing ' Hang sorrow, cast away care,' render him intrepid 
because blind to danger, insensibility proving a succedaneum in the place 
of fortitude ; that hardest of virtues to be acquired by contemplation 
and reasoning, the last learned by the Divine or the Philosopher." 

A sensible man who wants shoes, he declares, will resort 
to a clever workman, whatever his morals may be, rather 
than to one who, though scrupulously honest and deeply 
devout, is a bungler at his trade ; and were all our artisans to 
barter their knowledge and dexterity for a proportionate degree 
of virtue, the world would suffer greatly by the exchange. 

"We speculative people are apt to persuade ourselves it would be 
a happy world if all men were good, and I must own myself still in that 
persuasion, provided you allow us our own definition of good men : that 
is, such in whom reason is so absolute, and the spirit of rectitude so 
strong, as to overpower all indolence, appetite, terror, and pain, with 
the same ease as a violent fit of revenge, or love, or jealousy, or ambi- 
tion, or covetousness can do ; which will enable men to bear any toils 
or hurts in the prosecution of their purpose, without feeling them. But 
if we must be fetched down from our visionary ideas, and confined 
to such good men as can be found upon the earth, I much question 
whether matters would be mended if all others could be brought to 
resemble them. . . . 

" For Providence has so ordered the courses of sublunary affairs, 
that wickedness, impulse, and folly are made instrumental to wise and 
gracious purposes, and one vice is employed to correct the poisonous 
qualities, and prevent the mischievous effects, of another, so that none 
can be spared unless all are cured ; which we must not expect to see 

245 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

done before the coming of the Kingdom of the just, wherein, to speak 
in Scripture language, we hope to be born again, and become new 
creatures." 

According to Tucker's philosophy, the gratification of our 
own desires is the proper business of life; and selfishness 
consists, not in having a regard for oneself, but in having no 
regard for anybody else; and yet "life seems to be given, 
not for the benefit of the individual, but for some service 
done therein to the whole," for " we were neither born nor 
talented for ourselves alone : we are citizens of the universe." 
We all benefit to some extent by whatever any one of us 
does to increase the general stock of happiness. Though our 
persons be single and our efforts small, nobody can say what 
multitudes they may not affect for good or for evil. A little 
negligence in placing a candle may produce a fire that shall 
burn down a whole town ; and although Noah built his ark 
to save only a small family of eight persons, " in so doing he 
saved all the generations of men that have since overspread 
the earth." By doing good to another a man does good to 
himself; by hurting another he hurts himself; and not only 
so, but by doing good to a number of others a man earns 
more good for himself than he could possibly do by 
working for his own interest alone. Tucker enforces this 
doctrine by a quaint allegory of what he calls the " Bank 
of Heaven " : — 

" Since the allegory of books has been employed by the best autho- 
rities, we may consider the provisions of Heaven as an universal bank, 
wherein accounts are regularly kept, and every man debited or credited 
for the least farthing he takes out or brings in. All the good we procure 
to another, the labour and self-denial we go through prudently, and 
evil we suffer unavoidably, are written down as articles in our favour ; 
all the evil we do, the fond indulgences we give in to, or good we receive, 
entered per contra as so much drawn out of our cash. Perhaps some- 
thing may be taken out for the public services, but then we have the 
benefit of this in the public conveniences and protection whereof we 
partake ; but the remainder lies placed to each private account for 
answering our calls or supplying our occasions. 

" And this is a better bank than that of England to keep our current 

246 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 



cash; I shall not say for its greater security, because the rnomed men 
of this and foreign nations think the other secure enough ; but the 
Bank of England give no interest upon their notes, whereas the Bank 
of the Universe improve what we have lying there to immense advantage 
far beyond what could be made in script by any Jew or clerk m the 
secretary office let into secrets; and the application to our several 
occasions lies under wiser management than our own. If I have an 
acco mt with the Bank of England, and should take it mo my head 
because other folks are fond of the like, to throw away a large sum m 
punch and ale for gaining me the hu^as of a drunken mot ^ and .pro 
curing me an opportunity of serving my country which I want abilities 
to use or to buy a horse of noble lineage, descended from Turkish or 
Ba barlan ancestors, to run at Newmarket : upon applying to the cashier 
fn ThrTadneedle Street for a thousand pounds, he will instantly -order 
oavment without asking questions: though I may want the money 
Sously next year to make up a portion for my Serena or my Sparer 
O should I chance on some distant journey to be reduced low in pocket 
if I have no checked paper along with me, I cannot draw for a single 
sixnence to buy me a little bread and cheese. 

Tut the directors of the bank above have constant intelligence from 
all parts of the universe, and their runners traversing to and fro among 
ttfr customers: so that whatever I have belonging :to mc H* ,re £1 
rail for a sum to squander away upon some vice or folly, though I beg 
and pray never so hard, the cashier will not issue me a farthing, because 
he knows it had better be kept in reserve for more necessary occasions. 
But if I chance to fall into distress in any disconsolate spot of nature 
where a supply would do me real service, though I should not see the 
lanjer of my situation, nor have sent advice with the needful per post, 
I shall have the runner angel privately slip the proper sum into my 
hand at a time when I least expect it. So we have no need to trouble 
ourselves about the improvement of our money there or the laying i 
out for any particular uses : it is our business to use all our judgment 
and industry and vigilance for throwing as much as we can continually 
fnto Tank Yet this does not hinder us from taking present enjoyments 
from time to time, where innocent, and lying properly within our reach ; 
for though this be a lessening of our future demands, yet the future 
were of no avail if it were never to be present; nor is money good for 
anything but to be spent, provided it be spent prudently, and no more 
eiven for things than they are worth. 

^ Nor have we concern only with the articles of our own account, but 
with those likewise of other persons; from whence we may receive a 
oleasure not to be found in the ordinary course of worldly commerce. 
? on attending at the earthly accountant office, the eye, while the 
c erks turn oJv the leaves of their books, happens to catch upon some 
body e se s balance, which appears ten times larger than our own, one 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

may be mortified to find oneself so inconsiderable in point of riches, 
compared with him. 

" But in the accounts of Providence, a like discovery would prove no 
such mortification : for, we dealing all in partnership, the profits whereof 
are to be made equal to each in some shape or other in some part of 
our period, whatever virtues, talents, or successes we see elsewhere, 
adding more largely to the common stock than we can do ourselves, 
must become matter of rejoicing rather than vexation. Because the 
rule of equality insures to us that we shall either immediately partake 
of the fruits gathered therefrom, or at some future time be instated in 
a branch of trade we see to be more profitable than that now under our 
management." 

There is a great deal more in Tucker's seven volumes, 
both in the way of acute thinking and humorous illustration, 
which the reader who likes these samples may be left to find 
out for himself, if perchance he can light upon a copy of 
the work. Some of the chapters on subsidiary subjects — 
on habit, on custom and fashion, on vanity, on education 
— are admirable for sound common sense, original views, 
and effective handling ; and throughout the treatise we are 
occasionally interested and surprised by an almost pro- 
phetic anticipation of modern ideas. Tucker's mind seems 
to have been of that kind which, although it makes no 
discoveries in science and creates no era in speculation, 
is yet so constituted as to have foregleams of the road 
along which future scientific and philosophical thought will 
travel. He provided Paley with a scheme of natural theology 
and moral philosophy, on which several generations of our 
youths have been nourished. He anticipated a good deal of 
the utilitarian doctrine which we associate with the names 
of Mill and Bentham ; and if he did not quite invent the 
famous formula of the Utilitarian school, he at any rate came 
very near it in his persistent advocacy of an endeavour after 
"that general happiness wherein we shall always find our 
own contained." He was the first to draw attention to those 
curious mental phenomena which have since been named 
" unconscious cerebration " ; and he expressly advocated that 
very recent development of psychology, the scientific study 

248 



ABRAHAM TUCKER 

of the child-mind. A century before Pasteur he held the 
belief that all our diseases may proceed from " an imper- 
ceptible vermin swarming within us," and some of his ideas 
about the constitution and divisibility of matter bear a curious 
resemblance to what we have been hearing lately about 
electrons and radio-activity. It would be too much to assert 
that he had an anticipation of Darwin's doctrine of the 
origin of species, though he did say that perhaps nature 
originally made us to go on all fours, and that we have our- 
selves laboriously acquired the erect posture ; and when he 
declares that the common worm, perhaps, " assists the plough- 
man to fructify the earth by turning it continually, ... so 
that we may be beholden to him in part for our daily bread 
and owe him more thanks than anger for defiling the turf in 
our gardens," he most distinctly anticipates the interesting 
theory of the action of earth-worms to which Darwin devoted 
a volume a century or more afterwards. We may imagine 
with what delight the author of the hypothesis of the 
. r vehicular state " would have learned, as we have learned 
recently on the highest scientific authority, that when the 
atoms of oxygen unite with the atoms of hydrogen they rush 
into one another's embraces as if they were animated beings, 
which, indeed, Haeckel declares they are ; and what play 
he would have made with Herbert Spencer's " physiological 
units," with Weismann's "biphors," and "ids," and "idents," 
and the whole theory of the germ-plasm, or with the modern 
scientific statement that fifty million atoms of average size 
if laid end to end, would measure only about one inch in 
length, while, according to Sir Oliver Lodge, an "electron" 
could roam about in one of these inconceivably minute atoms 
like a mouse in a cathedral. 

But it is as a practical moralist and a metaphysical 
humourist that Tucker most conspicuously shines. With no 
illusions about human nature, knowing most men to be " so 
unreasonable that they expect to buy understanding and 
sentiments, as they do clothes, ready-made at a shop," and 

249 



NOBLE DAMES AND NOTABLE MEN 

finding plenty of voluptuaries in devotion as well as in eating, 
who, as he slily observes, would find " a sip of Davy's elixir, in 
the morning rising, a powerful means of grace," his temper is 
yet so truly equitable that he would not only do as he would 
be done by, but think as he would be thought by. And 
throughout the whole of his work he shows himself to be a 
friend and hearty well-wisher to all, whose main object is the 
inculcation of universal charity and unreserved benevolence. 
It is impossible to read through "The Light of Nature Pur- 
sued" without conceiving a hearty admiration for the 
honest, candid, simple, religious, yet shrewd and humorous 
character of its author ; and any reader who has accom- 
plished that rather long-drawn-out but nevertheless delight- 
ful task will probably echo Hazlitt's remark that he had 
never come across anything in the shape of a metaphysical 
treatise which contained so much good sense so agreeably 
expressed. 



250 



INDEX 



Addington, Henry A., 101, 102 
Addison, Joseph, 175, 176 
Ailesbury, Lady, 33, 49, 53 
Allen, Dr., 179, 180, 182, 189, 195 
Amelia, H.R.H. Princess, 22, 23, 

25. 34. 45. 46, 48, 53. 63, 67, 71, 72 
Angelo, Henry, 84, 88, 93, 97, 98, 

99, 100 
Argyll, Archibald, Duke of, n, 12 
Argyll, Jane, Duchess of, 4, 5, 6, 7, 

9, 13. 20, 33, 70 
Argyll and Greenwich, John, Duke 

of, 4, 5, 6, 7, 20, 21, 24, 32, 47, 51 
Austen, Miss, 195 
Austin, Mrs., 186, 189 

Babington, Dr., 199 

Barker, Edward, 205 

Barry, Madame du, 56, 57 

Barrymore, Lady, 68 

Bate-Dudley, Sir Henry, Bart. 
(" the fighting parson "), pa- 
rentage, 81 ; curate at Hendon, 
82 ; the Vauxhall affray, 82-86 ; 
subsequent boxing bout, 86-87 > 
founder and editor of Morning 
Post, 89-90; duel with " Captain" 
Stoney, 90-91 ; duel with pro- 
prietor of paper, 91 ; his comic 
operas, 93 ; riot at Drury Lane, 
93-94 ; marriage, 94 ; Mrs. Hart- 
ley. 95-9° ; started Morning 
Herald, 96 ; in prison for libel, 
96-97 ; bought advowson of 
Bradwell, 97 ; expended fortune 
there, 97-98 ; amusements on 
land and sea, 98-99; put down 
poaching, smuggling, and riot- 
ing, 100-101 ; testimonial from 
county magistrates, 101 ; eight 
years in Ireland, 102 ; created 
baronet, 102 ; prebend of Ely, 



103 ; death and summary of 
character, 103-104. Also men- 
tioned, 112, 117 

Beaufort, Duke of, 38 

Bedford, Duke of, 52 

Bellenden, Henry, n-12 

Bentham, Jeremy, 248 

Berkeley, Bishop, 211 

Bessborough, Lord, 47 

Bolingbroke, Lady, 38 

Bolingbroke, Lord, 38 

Borgia, Caesar, 228, 229 

Boufflers, Madame de, 34, 39 

Bowes, Andrew Robinson Stoney, 
90, 91, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 
118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 
126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 

133. 134. 135. 136, 137. 138, 139. 

140, 141, 142, 143, 144 
Bowes, George, M.P., 108, 109 
Brereton, — (Irish duellist), 92 
Brougham, Lord, 177, 184, 192 
Brown, Lady, 38, 39 
Brunswick, H.R.H. Duchess of, 46, 

58 
Brunswick, Prince Ferdinand of, 

32 
Bryant, Rev. Mr., 163 
Buccleuch, Duchess of, 75 
Burke, Edmund, 47 
Burnet, Thomas, 229 
Butler, Bishop, 211 
Byron, Lord, 177 

Camden, Lord, 81 

Campbell, Thomas, 187 

Canova, Antonio, 177 

Carew, Bampfylde-Moore (" King 
of the Beggars "), authorities for 
his life, 148-149; birth and 
parentage, 150; ran away and 
joined gipsies, 151 ; begging 



251 



INDEX 



tricks, 153 ; visit to Newfound- 
land, 154; apprenticed to rat- 
catcher, 154 ; elected king of 
the gipsies, 155 ; a runaway 
marriage, 156; reverses and 
imprisonment, 157-158; trans- 
portation to Maryland, 158 ; 
escape, 159; travels in America, 
160-161 ; return to England, 161 ; 
effective disguises, 162-163 ; as 
an old woman, 164; outwitted 
by Lord Weymouth, 166-167; 
made money by lotteries and 
retired from business, 168 ; 
summary of character, 168-170 

Carew, Rev. Theodore, 150 

Caroline, Queen (consort of 
George II.), 22 

Catherine, Empress of Russia, 36, 
52, 63 

Chabot, Lady Mary, 36, 44 

Chandos, Duke of, 58 

Chardin, Sir John, 175 

Charlotte, Queen (consort of 
George III.), 57 

Chatelet, Madame de, 49 

Choiseul, Due de, 52 

Chrysostom, St., 197 

Clive, Lord, 57, 65 

Coke, Edward, Viscount, 3, 9, 10, 
11, 12, 13, 14, 15 

Coke, Lady Mary, parentage and 
childhood, 4-8 ; Lord Coke's 
proposal, 9 ; marriage, 10 ; ill- 
usage, 10-14 ; separation and 
husband's death, 15; "engage- 
ment" to Lord March, 15-17; 
Horace Walpole's admiration, 
17-18 ; her sisters, 21-22 ; in the 
Court circle, 22-23, 34 ! relations 
with Duke of York, 44-47 ; pro- 
posal from Lord Bessborough, 
47-48 ; visit to Voltaire, 50 ; first 
visit to Maria Theresa at Vienna, 
51 ; second visit to Vienna, 57; 
quarrel with Maria Theresa, 61 ; 
ineffectual visit to Frederick 
the Great, 64-65 ; Italy and 
quarrel with Horace Mann, 65- 
67 ; cooling of friendship with 
Horace Walpole, 67-69 ; her 
journal, 69-70 ; her various 



residences, 70 ; quarrel with 
Princess Amelia, 71-72 ; eccen- 
tricities of dress and manner, 
72-74 ; death, 75 ; summary of 
character, 76 ; H. Walpole's 
letters to her, 19, 23, 25-26, 27- 
30, 30-31. 32-33* 35-37. 37~39. 
39-40, 41-42, 43-44. 49-50, 50-51, 
51-53, 54-55, 56-57. 58-59. 59- 
60, 61-63 ! H. Walpole's verses 
to her, 19, 31-32, 43 

Coleman, Thomas, 151, 152, 158 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 195 

Colman, George, 82 

Cowper, Lady, 192, 193 

Cowper, Lord, 192 

Crabbe, George, 79, 195 

Creevey, Thomas, 183, 184 

Crofts, Captain, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87 

Croker, John Wilson, 190 

Cumberland, H.R.H. Duke of, 38, 

47 
Cumberland, Richard, 53, 82 
Curran, John Philpott, 177 

Dalkeith, Lady (afterwards 
Baroness Greenwich), g, 21, 43, 
44, 45, 46, 52, 59, 69 

Dalkeith, Lord, 21 

Darwin, Charles, 249 

Dauphin, The, 36, 38, 39, 40 

Davies, W. H. (" the super- 
tramp "), 169 

Davy, Sir Humphry, 177, 189 

Deffand, Madame du, 55 

Defoe, Daniel, 211 

Delany, Mrs., 14, 64, 65 

Dorset, Duke of, 38 

Douglas, Lady, 75 

Drummond-Moray, Mr., 19, 59 

Dryden, John, 206 

Dudley, H., see Bate-Dudley, Sir 
Henry, Bart. 

Dudley, Lord, 181 

Duncombe, Tom, 180 

Eldon, Lord, 128, 177 
Epicurus, 221 
Erskine, Lord, 186 
Escott, John, 151, 153, 158 
Esterhazy, Princess, 63 
Estrees, Marshal d', 32 



252 



INDEX 



Fairfax, General, 175 

Fielding, Henry, 211 

Fife, Lady, 38, 42 

Fife, Lord, 38, 42 

Fitzgerald, Robert ("fighting 

Fitzgerald "), 85, 86, 87, 88 
Fitzherbert, Mrs., 74 
Foot, Dr. Jesse, 107, 108, in, 113, 

117, 118, 119, 131, 122, 123, 137, 

140, 142 
Fox, Charles James, 176, 198 
Fox, Henry (afterwards Lord 

Holland), 175, 176 
Francis, Sir Philip, 176, 177 
Franklin, Benjamin, 160 
Frederick the Great, 23, 64, 65 

Gainsborough, Thomas, 103 
Garrick, David, 52, 53, 82, 93 
Geoffrin, Madame de, 36, 39 
George II., 22, 26, 37 
George III., 26, 27, 28, 44, 57 
Germain, Lady Betty, 49 
Gifford, William, 191 
Gloucester, H.R.H. Duke of, 47, 

65,68 
Goadby, Robert, 149, 170 
Goderich, Lord, 190 
Goldsmith, Oliver, 79, 211 
Goodere, Captain, 161 
Gower, Lady, 9 
Gower, Lord, 75 
Granby, Marquis of, 32 
Grantham, Lord, 53 
Gray, George, 112, 114, 115, 117, 

120, 131, 141 
Gray, Thomas, 211 
Grenville, George, 40, 52 
Greville, C. C. F., 178, 179, 180, 

186, 191, 195, 196, 197, 199 
Grey, Earl, 192 
Guisnes, Monsieur de, 52 

Haeckel, Ernst, 249 
Hamilton, Duchess of, 46, 72 
Hamilton, Lady, 74 
Harrington, Lady, 72 
Harris, Mrs., 50 
Hartley, David, 211, 213 
Hartley, Elizabeth, 82, 83, 87, 94, 

95. 96, 103 
Hayward, Abraham, 177, 183, 189 



Hazlitt, William, 212, 250 

Hertford, Lady, ^^ 

Hertford, Lord, 32, 34, 64 

Hervey, Lady, n 

Hobart, Lord (afterwards Lord 
Auckland), 190 

Holderness, Lady, 71 

Holkham Hall, 3, 10, 12, 13, 14 

Holland, Elizabeth, Lady, parent- 
age, 173 ; marriage to Sir 
Godfrey Webster, 174 ; divorce 
and marriage to Lord Holland, 
174; Holland House, 174-177; 
management as hostess, 178- 
179; her despotism, 179-182; 
revolts against her, 182-183; 
some unpleasant impressions, 
184-185 ; Sydney Smith's testi- 
mony, 186-187; political am- 
bitions, 190-191 ; the talk at 
Holland House, 192-197; sum- 
mary of character, 198-199 

Holland, second Earl of, 175 

Holland, Henry Richard, Lord, 
173, 174, 176, "178, 179, 180, 185, 
186, 187, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195, 
196, 197 

Holland, Sir Henry, Bart., 178, 
181, 190, 198 

Holland House, 174-177, 196 

Home, Hon. James Archibald, 20, 
69 

Home, Lord, 69 

Horner, Francis, 188 

Hull, Thomas, 83, 95 

Humboldts, The, 177 

Hume, David, 211 

Hunter, Dr. John, 107, 128 

Huntingdon, Lord, 53 

Jeffrey, Francis, 177, 189 
Jekyll, Joseph, 184, 185, 190, 191 
Jersey, Lady, 184 
Johnson, Samuel, 211 
Jordan, Mrs., 103 
Joseph, Emperor of Germany, 51, 
54. 55> 61 

Kemble, Fanny, 185, 186 
Klopstock, Frederick Gottlieb, 

195, 196 
Knox, Rev. Alexander, 80 



253 



INDEX 



Lambert, General, 175 
Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent, 56 
Leeuwenhceck, Anthony Van, 231 
Leicester, Countess of, g 
Leicester, Thomas Coke, Earl of, 

3, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15 
Liechtenstein, Princess, 175, 176, 

179, 190 
Ligonier, Lord, 23, 24 
Lilford, Lady, 199 
Locke, John, 206, 213, 226, 227, 

228, 229, 231 
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 249 
Lonsdale, Lady, 74 
Luttrell, Henry, 177, 180, 184, 199 
Lyell, Sir Charles, 181 
Lyndhurst, Lord, 177 
Lyttelton, Lord ("the bad lord"), 

no 
Lyttelton, Lord (" the good 

lord "), 109 

Macaulay, Lord, 177, 181, 182, 

193, 194, 196, 197, 199 
Macdonald, Sir James, 193 
Mackenzie, Lady Betty, 9, 13, 17, 

22, 46, 49 
Mackenzie, James Stuart, 13, 22, 

33 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 174, 176, 

192, 196, 203 
Mandeville, Bernard, 244 
Mann, Sir Horace, 65, 67 
March, Lord (afterwards " old 

Q."), 15, 16, 17, 44 
Maria Theresa, Empress of Ger- 
many, 50, 51, 54, 55, 57, 60, 61, 
63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 72, 73 
Marie Antoinette, Queen of 

France, 52, 68 
Markham, Rev. Samuel, 130 
Martin, John, 151, 152, 158 
Melbourne, Lord, 180, 182, 192, 

193. i95i J 97 
Metternich, Prince, 177 
Mill, John Stuart, 248 
Milman, Dean, 195 
Minto, Lord, 192 
Mirepoix, Madame de, 35, 39 
Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth, 108, 109 
Montaigne, Michel, Seigneur de, 

204 



Moore, Thomas, 177, 178, 179, 180, 

182, 186, 189 
More, Sir Thomas, 196, 197 
Munro, Sir Thomas, 197 
Murray, Lord Advocate, 192 
Mustapha III., Sultan of Turkey, 

52 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 229 
Newton, Rev. John, 79 
Norfolk, Duchess of, 45 
North, Lord, 52, 89, 195 

Ossory, Countess of, 25, 128 
Ossory, Lord, 36 

Paley, William, 79, 203, 210, 219, 

248 
Palmerston, Lord, 191, 195, 198 
Parr, Rev. Dr. Samuel, 79, 176, 

177 
Pasteur, Louis, 249 
Pelham, Miss Frances, 47 
Penn, William, 161, 175 
Pigot, Lord, 57 
Pitt, Lady Anne, 22 
Pitt, William (Lord Chatham), 19, 

20, 26, 35, 36, 52 
Planta, Eliza, 114, 115, 116, 117 
Plato, 216, 223, 229 
Pleydell, Mr., 163, 164 
Poniatowski, Prince, 58, 59 
Pope, Alexander, 6, 211 
Porchester, Lord, 182 
Portman, Squire, 162 
Price, Thomas, 167, 168 
Pythagoras, 229 

Queensberry, Catherine, Duchess 
of, 16 

Redding, Cyrus, 187 

Reid, Thomas, 211 

Reynett, Mrs., 124, 125, 126, 127 

Reynett, Rev. Mr., 124, 127 

Rice, Thomas Spring (afterwards 

Lord Monteagle), 195 
Rich, Sir Henry (afterwards first 

Earl of Holland), 175 
Richardson, Joseph, 91 
Richardson, Samuel, 211 
Richmond, Duchess of, 38, 40 



254 



INDEX 



Richmond, Duke of, 38, 96, 195 
Rogers, Samuel, 177, 179, 180, 181, 

182, 184, 185, 186 
Romford, Count, 177 
Romilly, Sir Samuel, 177 
Rouelle, Monsieur, 56 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 40 
Russell, Lord John, 188, 190, 199 



St. John, Sir Henry Paulet, Bart., 

206 
Sefton, Lord, 184 
Seilern, Count, 51, 52 
SeVigne, Madame de, 49, 195 
Sharpe, Charles Kirkpatrick, 75 
Shelburne, Lord, 53 
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 102, 

177 
Sheridan, Tom, 177 
Sherlock, Bishop, 209 
Shield, William, 94, 103 
Siddons, Mrs., 93, 103 
Skinner, Alderman, 91 
Smith, Adam, 41, 211 
Smith, " Bobus," 182, 186, 189, 195 
Smith, Sydney, 177, 182, 185, 186, 

187, 188, 189, 190, 192 
Smollett, Tobias, 211 
Solander, Dr., 56, 63 
Soubise, Marshal, 32 
Spencer, Herbert, 249 
Stael, Madame de, 176, 195 
Stahl, Professor, 230 
Stephen, Sir James Fitzjames, 210 
Stephens, Rev. Henry, 115, 116, 

119, 124 
Stewart, Lady Susan, 46 
Stoney, A. R., see Bowes, A. R. S. 
Stormont, Lord, 53 
Strafford, Anne, Countess of, 21, 

22, 36, 45, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 57, 

60 
Strafford, Earl of, 21, 34, 42, 47, 

55. 61 

Strathmore, John Lyon, Earl of, 
no, in, 112 

Strathmore, Mary Eleanor, 
Countess of, parentage, 108- 
109 ; education, no ; marriage 
to Lord Strathmore, no; 
eccentricities, horticultural and 



poetic, m-112; death of Lord 
Strathmore, 112; acts the merry 
widow, 112; Stoney's courtship, 
114-117; strictures in Morning 
Post and Stoney's duel with 
editor, 117-118 ; marriage to 
Stoney, 119 ; deed settling 
estates on herself revoked, 120- 
121 ; husband's extravagance, 
121-122 ; attempted abduction 
of Lord Strathmore's daughters, 
123-126 ; escape from husband, 
128-129; abducted by husband, 
r 3 I-I 35 > rescued, 136-137 ; hus- 
band tried and imprisoned, 138; 
property restored to her, 139 ; 
her death, 141 ; husband's life 
in prison, 139-143; his death, 
143 ; summary of character, 144. 
Also mentioned, go, 91 

Stuart, Lady Louisa, 6, 7, 8, 14, 
15, 17, 47, 64, 68, 70, 73, 74, 75, 76 

Suffolk, Lady, 12, 36, 42 

Swift, Dean, 211 

Talleyrand, Prince, 176, 180, 196 

Taylor, Henry, 195 

Taylor, John, 89 

Temple, Lady, 20, 34 

Temple, Lord, 36, 40, 52 

Thiers, Adolphe, 198 

Thurlow, Lord, 177 

Ticknor, George, 183, 192, 193 

Tillard, Sir Isaac, 205 

Tooke, John Home, 52 

Townley, Rev. James, 82, 93 

Townshend, Charles, 21, 43 

Trevelyan, Sir George, 176, 193 

Tucker, Abraham, birth and 
education, 205 ; marriage, 205 ; 
references to wife in " Light of 
Nature," 206-207, 227-228 ; daily 
habits, 208-209 ; commenced 
author, 209-210 ; retired life, 211 ; 
death, 212 ; account of his moral 
philosophy, 213-219; specula- 
tions on a future state, 220-222 ; 
the " soul of the world," 223- 
225 ; the " vision " of a future 
life, 225-231 ; quaint illustra- 
tions and comparisons, 232- 
234 ; some heresies, 234-236 ; 



255 



INDEX 



man made for animals, 238 ; 
animal immortality, 240-243 ; the 
use of vice in the world, 244- 
245 ; allegory of " the Bank of 
Heaven," 246-248 ; anticipations 
of modern ideas, 248-249 
Tucker, Judith, 206 

Valliere, Madame de la, 38, 39 
Van Dyck, Sir Anthony, 175 
Voltaire, 49, 50, 53 

Wales, Prince of (afterwards 

George IV.), 74, 102 
Wales, Princess Dowager of, 41, 

58 
Walpole, Horace, 4, 9, 10, n, 12, 

14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 

27. 30, 31. 32, 34. 35, 37. 39, 4°, 
41, 42, 43, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 53, 
54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 64, 65, 66, 
67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 75, 76, 128 ; 
Walpole's letters to Lady Mary 
Coke, 19, 23, 25-26, 27-30, 30- 
3i, 32-33, 35-37, 37-39, 39"40, 



41-42, 43-44, 49-50, 50-51, 51-53, 

54-55, 56-57, 58-59, 59-6o, 61-63 ; 

his verses to Lady Mary Coke, 

19, 31, 32, 43 
Warburton, Jane, see Argyll, 

Jane, Duchess of. 
Washington, George, 179 
Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 169 
Webster, Sir Godfrey, 173, 174 
Weismann, August, 249 
Weyer, M. Van de, 177, 182, 183 
Weymouth, Thomas Thynne, 

Viscount, 166, 167 
Whately, Archbishop, 203 
Whiston, Joseph, 230 
White, Rev. Gilbert, 79 
Whitefield, George, 160, 209 
Wilkes, John, 52 
Wilkie, Sir David, 196 
William III., 75, 175 
Wordsworth, William, 195 

Yarmouth, Lady, 22, 23, 37 
York, H.R.H. Duke of, 18, 44, 45, 
46, 47, 65 



BRADBURY, AGNEW & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE, 



WAR % 1911 



